


A Brave New World...

by Of_Princes_and_Savages



Series: Beauty within the Beast 'verse [4]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: 3 makes a Series yo!, Cursed Storybrooke, Dark One Belle, F/M, Spinner!Rum, pre-Memories of Gold
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-17
Updated: 2017-01-01
Packaged: 2018-05-26 06:35:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 30
Words: 94,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6227752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Of_Princes_and_Savages/pseuds/Of_Princes_and_Savages
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They called him Gold. That wasn't his name, and this wasn't their home, but only he and the Queen seemed to know it. Not that he was going to let on that he knew anything. Besides...once again, he was in the employ of the Dark One, who in this strange land went by the name of Lacey French...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I. Dawn

**Author's Note:**

> I lost my "hardcopy" of this prologue chapter, so I want to get it posted before it's deleted. Uh, I mean, Happy Saint Patrick's day?
> 
> (PS, life is getting a little bit crazy and while I've got this and the next two weeks covered, I may or may not be a late with updates soon...(

Rumpelstiltskin woke up on a strange mattress in strange clothes in a stranger room.

It was the natural start to the strangest day of his life: Starting with the walking stick at his bedside. Instead of a long staff, it didn't quite reach his hip, and it had a slightly curved T-shaped handle, all made from dark, well-worn wood. When he got out of bed and tested it, he found it was a bit easier to limp around on, actually, and then he looked out the window.

**This was not the Enchanted Forest.**

The town was made from crowded buildings, odd structured ones at that, and the most conspicuous feature in town was the tall tower with the giant clockface in the center of it frozen in place. The sky overhead was pale and gray, and everything seemed...still, outside. It a bird or two weren't fluttering across the skyline, Rumpelstiltskin might say it was a painting hanging on the wall.

_'Gold.'_

The name popped up unbidden, and Rumpelstiltskin frowned. His name was Rumpelstiltskin. He didn't know any Golds. Then another word popped up as he looked down at his walking stick: _'A cane.'_

There was an odd, fuzzy feeling pricking at the back of his mind, not unlike pins and needles. As he started looking around the room and the names to items he didn't recognize continued to appear to his grasping mind. _The alarm clock, the record player, the ceiling fan._ And peeking out the window again, more unfamiliar-but-familiar words popped up: _Mailbox, cars, powerlines, fire hydrant_.

Going over to the dresser, he pulled out a pair of stiff blue trousers with a funny closure that went zip! when he pulled the tab. ( _Jeans_.) He found, in another drawer, a navy-blue shirt with buttons that wasn't threatening. Rumpelstiltskin put them on, and sat on the bed to put on a pair of white stockings ( _socks_ ) and spared a moment to be thankful for his knot-tying skills as he navigated the ties of his slightly-scuffed leather shoes ( _shoelaces_ ).

There.

While he didn't feel 100%, he felt more prepared to venture out of this room now that he wasn't wearing an over-sized short white night shirt and blue tartan-patterned fabric trousers ( _flannel pajama pants_ ).

Only when he got downstairs, he was confronted with a new problem: His home was apparently built on top of a shop. Even the little prickle at the back of his mind didn't recognize what everything was, but he did notice one wall of the shop was full of bookshelves. It wasn't enough, but he hadn't seen so many books since he'd left the Dark Castle, and a pang of homesickness hit him.

The shop had large windows in the front, covered by thin strips of white held together by string ( _blinds_ ) and a door with a sign that read **OPEN** facing him, stuck to the door, but gold-outlined navy-blue lettering spelling something different.

When he got close enough, be deciphered it as a backwards _'OLD WORLD BOOKS AND ANTIQUES'_. And, unbidden, a small description popped into his mind that was the most complex, unexpected thought yet:

_'Old World Books and Antiques is the only bookshop or pawnshop in the town of Storybrook. Owned by Lacey French.'_

This town was Storybrook, he lived upstairs here, and his name was Gold...and other than that he had no idea what in the seven hells was going on here.


	2. II. The Otherside

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When we last left off, Rumpelstiltskin awoke in a strange new world, and nothing is quite right...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Seatbelts everyone! This sequel is set during Cursed!Storybrooke pre-Emma.

Lacey French shuffled to her master bathroom, sparing a glance in the mirror when she arrived. For an absurd moment, she wondered what Storybrooke would think of the bleary-eyed, makeup-free face peering out from under a lion's mane of tangles. They'd probably flee faster than they already did, she snorted, stripping off her floppy navy blue pajamas.

A quick shower had her feeling much more conscious, and Lacey went about the process of assembling the face of Ms. French against the whole of Storybrooke. She liked to think of her makeup as lighter than Ruby Lucas down at Granny's, but still applied a swipe of eyeliner to give her that cat's-eyed look, and a heavy ring of black mascara and golden eyeshadow. When she was a viriginal little teen, Lacey had always been told she had beautiful eyes. Now she liked to draw attention to them because the inky black around her summer-sky blue irises tended to unsettle people. A smudge of rose-petal pink lipstick to make her white teeth stand out like a Cheshire Cat's smile completed her mask.

Lacey threw her hair up in a twist today, and put on a soft white blouse with puffy sleeves that looked totally prim and proper. Almost befitting a secretary, which she wasn't. That much was clear by the mid-thigh mini skirt she put on next, coming up just even with her navel, a bright aqua blue that made her smooth black hosiery stand out that much more. Stepping into a pair of chunky heels to give her an extra three inches of height against a world built far too large for her, as evident by how she never used anything more than the bottom shelves in the kitchen cabinets. (Not that she had anyone else in the house, so she didn't have a large stack of china or collection of tea mugs.)

For breakfast, Lacey made herself a cup of coffee and poured a bit of cream in it. Then she poured a very generous shot of bourbon into the mix and drank down her not-quite-an-Irish-cream coffee. Sometimes she poured in a bit of whiskey, sometimes rum, vodka once in a while. Usually bourbon though. Although she did like a good whiskey.

Thus warmed on the inside and wrapped in a dark peacoat, she walked from her large, empty pink house down to her shop, paying little attention to Doctor Hopper walking his dalmatian or Marco fixing his sign overhead. Mayor Mills walked by but Lacey could care less about that than she could about the damned sign.

The mousy mechanic she only recalled the name of because it was printed on his uniform, Billy, scurried across the street to avoid her when Lacey was a good fifteen feet away. It was amusing to her how a tiny Australian woman in heels and a miniskirt inspired such terror in the local peons. It was probably also the reason she started the day with a spiked coffee.

It was a quarter to nine, as always, and Lacey unlocked the door and let herself in. She came across the sole employee and, she sometimes joked, nightwatchman of Old World Books and Antiques, standing stupidly in the middle of the store.

"You gonna just stand there Gold or would you mind sweeping up? I don't pay you to be a living statue," she rolled her eyes, ignoring the odd little man. (Although, even though he was one of the shortest men in town, Gold was still taller than her by nearly half a foot without her heels.)

Gold was a decent person. If Lacey had to rank the townsfolk in order of best to worst, Gold would rank farther on the "best" spectrum simply because he minded his own business and had a good head on his shoulders. Not a handsome head, mind, but it functioned properly and sensibly. At least when he wasn't stammering or averting his eyes or scurrying away.

Goodness, he sounded like Piglet if you thought about it like that.

Lacey was interrupted from this absurd-but-amusing thought of her employee as a frightened little cartoon character by said man saying: "Belle?"

"I beg your pardon?"

She cast her eyes on Gold questioningly and, predictably, he lowered his eyes shaking his head. "N-nothing, m'la-Uh, _ma'am_ , I just, um-"

"Spit it out," she sighed. She was going to need a strengthened tea at this rate.

Gold shifted his weight to his good foot, raising his up just long enough to meet her eyes. Well his face was thin and crooked and sharp, but Gold had sweet eyes in his favor, Ms. French would admit. Sweet, shy, soft brown eyes, the sort that made a little puppy irresistable. Until it tore up your sofa. Or chewed up your shoes.

"I...I just didn't hear the bell, above the door? Y-you surprised me. That's all."

He was lying but she didn't particularly give a damn, so she let it pass with a roll of her eyes, sweeping into the back of the shop to her desk. She unlocked her filing cabinet and got to work on the underappreciated side of owning the majority of a small town: Paperwork and record-keeping. Sure, Madam Mayor might keep city records, but Lacey French believed in self-reliance. If she had her own copy, she could prove when somebody tried to screw her over. Which was why attempts to do so rarely ended well.

 _'Ask Xavier Reyes,'_ she snickered, picking up her pen and making a note in her ledger...

* * *

This was wrong. This was very wrong.

Rumpelstiltskin didn't know why Belle kept calling him "Gold", and he didn't know why she didn't respond to her name. That little prompt at the back of his mind that kept providing words like _'telephone'_ and _'Mickey Mouse'_ as he looked around the shop insisted that she was Lacey French, or Ms. French. _'And usually Gold just calls her ma'am,'_ the nudging reminded, but that wasn't right at all...

Was it?

Rumpelstiltskin limped around to behind a glass counter where there was a stool set up by a large, heavy-looking gold box. (A cash register, and an old one at that.) He sat down and propped his cane against the counter, and just waited for a moment, staring at his hands while he tried to think.

The last thing he recalled...the last thing he recalled was entering the Dark Castle after an extensive and unplanned vacation, of sorts. Belle sent him home, angry with him for kissing her. (A part of his brain reminded him, too, that she kissed him, but he ignored it because that couldn't be right at all...) Queen Regina had captured him for a long while in a high tower, until her father let him go. And then he tried to find Bae, but he had left their village. So the spinner had retraced his steps to the Dark Castle...and... 

And here's where things started getting fuzzy. He'd been gone for almost a year, he figured, maybe a bit more since it was almost two years since he'd last seen Baelfire. And things had gotten dusty in his absence, Belle obviously not keeping up with the housekeeping. (He tried not to remember the state of her tower and feeling the most peculiar fondness over it.) But what bothered him was that the table in the Great Room was dusty. Even when he first arrived, it was mostly clean with the exception of an odd spot because Belle used it all the time. She must've been gone for a long time for that table to have dust settle on it...

And then...

The fog.

The thick, purple fog filled with lightning and shadows and terror rolled across the land. It shattered the windows and swallowed Rumpelstiltskin up, and that was truly the last thing he remembered before waking up in the room upstairs.

This was wrong and very bad.

For lack of anything better to do than sit in shock, Rumpelstiltskin grabbed the broom behind him and started to sweep up the hardwood floor. It had to have been magic. Some curse perhaps? Rumpelstiltskin almost wished he could ask Belle,- _Ms. French,_ -but something was very wrong there too.

For one thing, despite wearing short gowns that hardly covered her knees before, Rumpelstiltskin had never seen Belle wear an outfit like this one. And he'd never seen clothes like the one upstairs he sensed belonged to him. And Belle had never, even at her most Dark Oneiest, treated him like a nusiance dog nudging her for attention.

Then again...maybe she hated him now. When Milah was in a good mood she'd treated him that way, choosing to ignore him rather than belittle him. Sad thing when being ignored by your wife was better than having her attention. Not that Belle was his wife. And Ms. French certainly wasn't.

The floor was clean and the dirt disposed of in a bin by the time one of the many clocks against one wall read a quarter to eleven. (He'd only seen clocks at the Dark Castle before, and Belle had to explain to him how it worked and how to read the hands, but it was much easier to read than a sundial or an hourglass.) His stomach gurgled and the spinner realized, belatedly, that he probably hadn't eaten anything since his hasty sandwich at the Dark Castle...gods knew how long ago, now.

 _'Nine to twelve, one to six.'_ It took a moment of pondering to realize those were the hours of the shop. Rumpelstiltskin found a soft cloth behind the counter where the broom was kept and idly wiped the tops of the glass cases as he waited for noon. Belle had been quite insistent back in the Dark Castle about eating two meals a day, and even if she seemed different now, somehow he thought that wouldn't change. Even though at this point he wasn't hungry at all _._

At about five minutes 'til, Belle-Ms. French, came out the back room and peered at one of the many clocks on the wall. Rumpelstiltskin studied her out the corner of his eye, wiping dust off the bookshelves then, to be sure he truly wasn't mistaken.

The chestnut hair and pert nose were the same, and that's what Rumpelstiltskin took heart in. The rest of this woman was different. She she had pale skin still, but it was a creamy peachy-color, and soft-looking. Her lips were painted deep pink and golden dust shimmered on the lids of her black-rimmed eyes, drawing attention to the bright, shining blue irises. Either as the ethereal Dark One Belle or the snippy Ms. French, she was still a beautiful little creature. He'd never seen her wear shoes before, he noticed belatedly. They were ankle-high boots without laces, black and shiny with chunky three-inch heels that elevate her height.

He turns back to dusting when Ms. French (no wonder he calls her "ma'am", that name hardly suits her at all,) said, "I don't pay overtime, y'know? If you're gonna eat it would be better to use your break to do so rather than clean my shelves like a zombie."

Rumpelstiltskin groped for information in his mind, grasping at a vague memory of returning upstairs to eat a sandwich in the small kitchen. "Aye, uh, j-just finishing up ma'am," he lies. It tastes foul to lie to Belle's face. The only thing he's hidden from her is the fact that he broke her clockwork nightingale, but he fixed that. How could he fix _this_ when he didn't even know what had changed?

Ms. French hummed disinterestedly and walked out. His mind supplied the image of some sort of pub, down the street, run by a formidable old woman who is one of the only people in town who isn't frightened by Ms. French. Perhaps some other day Rumpelstiltskin might investigate. For now...he decided a sandwich was a safe course of action.

He certainly wasn't comfortable in this odd little building, but it was less frightening than whatever might lay outside the door...

Taking a better look around upstairs, he supposed this was his apartment. There had been buildings in Longbourne like this, shops on the bottom floor and homes on the upper floor. His mind was torn between calling the space a _'flat'_ , and an _'apartment'_. The flat name seemed more appropriate as it was a flat, mostly-open space divided into three rooms: This main room with the kitchen and living space, the one door leading to the bedroom, and the "bathroom".

In the kitchen, there was a cupboard different that the cabinets, made from metal with large handles. Pulling open the larger, bottom door, a chill hit Rumpelstiltskin's skin. It was cold in there! Inside the cold little cupboard were foodstuffs, some were obvious like the little tray holding the eggs or sticks marked 'butter' on the paper wrapping. Others were unfamiliar, but placed in containers with colorful labels. Mustard, bread-and-butter pickles, a grape jelly, sour cream? Who would keep soured dairy? And...by the gods how did you pronounce that off-white stuff with the yellow label?

"May-oh-nyze...mayoniss..." he frowned, trying to sound out the off-white product's name. " _M-A-Y-O-N-N-A-I-S-E_ , what the _hell_ is that?"

It didn't escape his notice that the cupboard wasn't very well stocked. Oh it was more than Rumpelstiltskin had usually had at home to share with Bae, but it still didn't seem to be very much. Poking around the cabinets he unearthed a few boxes of something called "noodles" and some tomato sauce in glass jars, a bag of rice, some silver cannisters he hadn't the slightest idea how he was going to open to access the peas and corn featured on the label, and a similar square-shaped container made from shiny gold metal with a little ring on the lid that he supposed could be pulled.

If he wanted whatever the hell Spam was...

There was a loaf of bread already all sliced up, and so Rumpelstiltskin put a bit of jam and butter on two pieces and ate that. The cabinets looked rather empty, too, he noticed. Rumpelstiltskin supposed, at some point, he would have to go out and find the nearest market.

But he could stretch out what he had for now. He'd done that before. For some reason, Rumpelstiltskin suspected that few of his already scarce skills would serve him well in this odd world where Belle did not remember him and lanterns hung in the ceiling, activated by flicks of switches.

Yes, he didn't need to leave the building just yet...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter III: In which Regina thinks it's good to be the Mayor, until noon, and "Gold" starts exploring his new home.
> 
> Updates on Friday, (sometimes Thursday night!) and if you have a prompt in mind feel free to hassle me on Tumblr! I have to research a lot of S


	3. III. Welcome to Storybrooke

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When we last left off, Lacey French appeared and "Gold" took stock of his situation...

Regina had killed her father.

Regina had killed her poor father.

That thought kept needling at the Queen-turned-mayor, but she would tuck it into the back of her mind until later. Because her father would undoubtedly be in a better place than her side, he deserved that much. And she had finally done it.

_She had won!_

Oh, true, the weather of Storybrooke was no great shakes. But it was a nice, neat little town for her to reign supreme over. Snow White was a mousy school teacher without her insipid hope, her beloved prince a comatose patient in the hospital, and everyone from the cricket to the werewolf were muddling through dreary little lives she controlled. Even the almighty Dark One was trapped in her net, Regina smiled to herself, recalling "Ms. French" striding down the street and the townsfolk scurrying out of her way.

There wasn't much Regina could do to Belle to make her miserable. Honestly, Belle didn't have that much positive in her life to take away. Regina had thought about making Belle her maid, (how delicious was that, Belle a maid?) but it was just as well to have Belle as the town pariah. For one thing, Regina wasn't _about_ to try and cheat Belle out of her last-minute deal, even if she didn't remember making it yesterday. And for another, it gave everyone another powerful woman to focus their disdain upon instead of her. There was something nice about walking down the street and not being looked at like she had killed a puppy in front of them.

Regina had never killed a puppy, but she had killed plenty of humans. She supposed that was just as bad.

But she won.

She had finally won her happy ending.

* * *

Whenever Lacey French went to Granny's on her lunch break, she would sit outside with her to-go meal, and tipped Ruby Lucas well so as to deter her from spitting in her iced tea for spite. It was an arrangement that suited everyone, because she wouldn't scare away customers if she wasn't sitting in the diner, and she wouldn't have to put up with a bunch of ignorant flannel-clad neanderthals and their puritanical women and hollow-brained spawn for more than necessary.

Mrs. Lucas and her granddaughter Ruby were pretty close to Gold on Ms. French's best-to-worst scale. Mrs. Lucas was a tough old bird who wasn't afraid of anything (there was a rumor that she'd been to France in World War II,) and always had her rent ready, even if she sometimes counted it out in quarters just to be difficult. Ruby had a reputation as the town bicycle, a slutty-dressing party girl type. Lacey recalled her from high school as simply being friendly and having one prick of a boyfriend who started her reputation because she wouldn't put out on command.

So Lacey was, arguably, one of the most civil people towards Ruby simply because she understood the hazards of a label.

The Lucases and Ms. French weren't friends by any means, but they had an understanding. A complicated one, but an understanding.

She chose a seat farther to the back of the patio from the door, so that Mrs. Lucas couldn't accuse her of scaring off customers. Mrs. Lucas' bed and breakfast might've been a failure since no one ever came to Storybrooke who didn't put down roots to slowly choke and die here, but her diner was the most used eatery in town. Even if her lasgna was overrated.

At least her sandwiches and iced tea were up to snuff.

While Lacey opened up a copy of _The Storybrooke Mirror_ to the headline declaring President Reagan was keeping the Marines exactly where they were, she half-noticed Mayor Mills swanning into the diner.

She did not notice, about ten minutes later, when a man and his son she'd never seen before walked up the path with confused expressions and entered the diner, too...

* * *

Rumpelstiltskin had finished his buttered, jammy bread too soon. Not that he was hungry, exactly, he just didn't know what to do with the remaining fifty minutes of his break. So he began exploring the flat, cautiously.

The main room had the small kitchen area, and a living space with a large, battered couch covered in apolstery that was neither yellow nor green nor brown but some ungodly combination of all three, and was very itchy on his skin. Rumpelstiltskin left the large box on top of a low wooden table be, not sure what the shiny glass plate would do or what all those little twisty knobs were for. (A _'television set'_ , his brain said, and Rumpelstiltskin resolved to continue ignoring it.) The furniture in this room was old, he could tell that, and sparse. There was a braided rug on the floor and a two pictures of different birds, and a large black cuckoo clock with carved oak leaves and acorns...and that was really it. A bookshelf, a potted plant in the window, a basket on the floor by a threadbare armchair covered in a plush afghan that was far more comfortable than the couch. A low table in front of the couch and a small round table closer to the kitchen that must've been for eating dinner on...

 _Very_ sparse.

A quick peek in the basket and a smile appeared on Rumpelstiltskin's face for the first time that day.

Yarn and knitting needles.

The same black knitting needles he'd made Belle's golden blanket with. Or was it a shawl? They had never decided. For a moment Rumpelstiltskin sat in the armchair, examining the half-finished mitten made from soft gray yarn, and then the cuckoo clock chimed.

 _Oh gods._ He was late. And no matter what kind of place this was; The woman downstairs would doubtlessly disapprove of tardiness.

He limped down the stairs as quickly as he could and threw up a thanks for whatever deity kept Ms. French out so long. He went back to doing what he'd been doing before, dusting the bookshelves, and once that was done, he tried to make note of how the books were arranged. It was a different set up than the Dark Castle's library, but like-genres were still together in alphabetical order, by author. Rumpelstiltskin didn't recognize a single book and was puzzled that there were multiple copies. And little tags with the prices printed on them. He picked up one copy titled _Alice in Wonderland_ stuck amidst the children's literature and opened it to the first page...

* * *

Regina had been walking on air since she woke up.

The highlight of her day was when she'd been to the school, where the mousy school teacher Mary-Margaret Blanchard was instructing a group of fourth-graders about birdhouses. (Regina wasn't sure if that was the curse at work, because that seemed like a very Snow White Pursuit.) She'd enjoyed taking the ever-so-hopeful princess to see her comatose True Love and seeing no hope in her hazel eyes when she learned he was alone and unclaimed.

Oh yes, Regina could get used to victory.

She then marched down to the diner and sat at the counter, skimming over the menu to Granny's before ordering a plate of apple pancakes. Granny herself put them in front of Regina, and they looked _delicious_. Buttery and fluffy cakes with warm apple topping and a dollop of cream.

And something equally delicious sidled up to her at the counter: Sheriff Graham.

Regina wasn't sure if that was his first or last name, but she would admit that the curse had done an excellent job in suiting the Huntsman. He looked very handsome. And he smiled and asked if he could come over later. She still had his heart locked in a box in her office, but the way he seemed to offer to, er, "come over" later was more satisfying than ordering him to her chambers. Regina could get used to this world, where everything was at her fingertips.

And that was when her afternoon folded, with the chirp of a question, "You like apple pancackes too?"

A small boy in a goofy-looking stocking hat smiled up at her and Regina's good mood sputtered. She half-hoped it was Gepe- _Marco'_ s boy, the puppet, but he apparently lost his son in the curse. And then the boy's father, _Kurt Flynn_ , showed up and said they needed a hotel room. They were strangers.

Strangers in a town that Regina had specifically designed **NOT** to have any.

So she did what she thought was a sensible and mayoral thing to do: She excused herself and dragged Graham into a corner.

"Who the hell are those people?" she asked, well, half demanded.

"I don't know," Graham looked at the child hopping onto a stool and his father, and shrugged. "They just...showed up. They were camping in the woods near the toll bridge. I was just as surprised to see them as you are-"

"I don't like surprises, Sheriff, I find them threatening!" Regina hissed. "And do you know what happens when I feel threatened? _Bad things_..."

* * *

Wonderland was familiar to Rumpelstiltskin from Belle's books at the Dark Castle. But reading about it through a child's eyes proved to be difficult to put down. Alice was, in Rumpelstiltskin's opinion, a snippy little thing more than likely a little spoiled, but she did not lack spirit. He was in the middle of reading about Alice trying to get a straight answer out of a very disagreeable caterpillar when a loud _thump!_ nearly made him fall over.

Ms. French smirked at him with a hint of malice, holding an extremely large and thick book in her hands that she'd snapped closed. She set it back on the shelf and crossed her arms, arching her finely groomed eyebrow at him.

"Now that I have your attention, what are you doing Gold?"

Gold again. "I...uh...I-I was dusting. Well I _was_ , um, I, er..."

Ms. French plucked the copy from his hands and took in the title at a glance. "Alice in Wonderland? Haven't you ever read this before?" her voice was tinted with a bit of exasperation and if Rumpelstiltskin had been born with a brain he could have told it was a rhetorical question.

Instead: "No ma'am."

And Ms. French looked at him like he'd sprouted a second head. " _What_?"

"I...have not read it, before, m-ma'am..." he swallowed, looking down to his cane. He'd been given a new walking aid in this world. Why couldn't he be given better _sense_ instead?

The book was thrust back under his nose and he grabbed it on instinct. Ms. French was already swaying to the back room with a careless wave of her hand, the other planted on her hip.

"I cannot have illiterate employees. Read it and then put it back on the shelf when you're finished dusting."

Rumpelstiltskin looked from the dark beaded curtains that swished shut behind Ms. French to the colorful illustration on the cover of the book. It took him an embarrassingly long time to move, and he set the book down on the counter near the cash register and went back to dusting.

Perhaps...

_**Perhaps there was more of Belle here than he'd originally thought...** _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter IV: In which Regina learns the price of victory, and Gold starts to come up with a theory.
> 
> Notice: I'm accept situation prompts on Tumblr for this story. I know where it's ending up, but if any of you dear readers have a cursed!Storybrooke scenario you'd like to see, drop one in the comment section or over on my Tumblr page. Carry on!


	4. IV. Three Days Hence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When we last left off, Rumpelstiltskin finds something is very wrong, and Regina begins to see the price of her curse...

According to the handy calendar Rumpelstiltskin had found hanging on his bedroom wall,-a thin paper book of sorts that hung on the wall, with months and dates listed,-it was the third morning in Storybrooke. Three days since he woke up here. Four days, give or take, since the purple fog washed over the Enchanted Forest. And he was no closer to figuring out what happened.

He'd yet to leave the physical building of the shop. Both the odd little hints prodding the back of his mind and the unchanging routine of the past two days had given him a novel idea though: This could be a curse.

He got dressed and limped down the stairs, sitting behind the counter and Ms. French strode in. If her clothes hadn't changed, it would be a perfect replay of the first two mornings, word-for-word, action-for-action.

"You gonna just stand there Gold or would you mind sweeping up? I don't pay you to be a living statue," she rolled her eyes, clicking across the floor to the backroom.

Not that Gold was much better. He tried to summon what little nerve he had, managed to croak a pathetic, "Uh..."

Then Ms. French would look at him over her shoulder, utterly bored. " **Spit it out**."

"N-nevermind," he swallowed, again, and she rolled her eyes again like he was an idiot (guilty as charged, he supposed,) and went into the back to start her paperwork and recordkeeping.

Yes, something was definitely up...

Although today (Monday, the little calendar declared in bold black numbers,) Ms. French had decided to come up to the front counter. She was, of her own volition, wiping a few pieces clean and fidgeting with them. Rumpelstiltskin took this time to examine the back room more closely, as he'd been to afraid to do more than pass through it on his way to the front of the shop thus far. It was very crowded, with large metal cabinets and stacks of books, furniture and more baubles. He swept the floor while he looked around, and came to the conclusion that, whatever this curse had done, had left Belle in a very similar position to where she was in the Enchanted Forest. A dealer, a collector.

And he was, once again, her caretaker. Of sorts.

The peaceful calm that had settled in the quiet shop was shattered by the bell that Rumpelstiltskin only heard jangle when Ms. French came or went, (it was easier to think of her as a different person than Belle, when she acted this way,) and it was still so quiet he could clearly hear the dark female voice growl, "I'm not happy."

Rumpelstiltskin peeked through the curtains to find the Evil Queen standing in the middle of the shop and his knees almost buckled.

No.

No.

What was she doing here? What if she saw him? She hadn't made any attempts to recapture him, but Rumpelstiltskin had also traveled incognitio as much as he could...did she know he was here? Was they why she was mad? That Belle had stolen her prisoner?

Belle-well, Ms. French,-looked at Regina blankly, then pointed back towards the door. "Wrong building, Doctor Hopper is down the street. Have a nice day."

Rumpelstiltskin should not be so comforted by his tiny mistress sassing the Evil Queen, even presumably cursed.

"Oh no," the Queen shook her head, pointing at Ms. French. "I want to talk to _you_."

Ms. French set the lid she'd been polishing down on the counter. "Very well, talk about what then?"

"This town," the Queen began. "This isn't the deal we made!"

A deal? Rumpelstiltskin frowned letting the curtain fall shut as he listened closely. Only a small part of him quivered in fear of being caught--the rest of him wanted answers. And he was not above eavesdropping to get them.

He almost peeked out the curtains again during the long pause, and Ms. French's slow reply of, "I'm sorry...but I don't...I don't know what you're talking about."

Well, at that he did peek, a little bit. He couldn't see much but he saw Regina facing Ms. French...who's face was completely blank. A bit puzzled, perhaps, but mostly blank. And Rumpelstiltskin knew before the Queen did that she meant it. Belle was a master of half-truths and twisting words around, yes, but when it came to Regina she liked to taunt the Queen with things only she knew. Rumpelstiltskin had seen that. And Belle did not taunt, she did not tease, she just stared back at Regina who's own face was nearly shocked at the end of another long silence.

"You don't...do you?"

Rumpelstiltskin let the curtain drop shut and backed up a step as Regina moved away from the counter, pacing to the other side of the shop. He heard her heels click against the wood floor and the same, low, broken tone that she'd used when she realized the people of the Enchanted Forest would never love her.

"I was supposed to be happy here..." she murmured.

There was a beat and Ms. French asked, "Ah, forgive me for asking, but...you're the mayor. Most powerful woman in town, probably. What is there to be unhappy about?"

"Everyone in this town does whatever I say!"

"And that's a problem?" Ms. French chuckled like she couldn't quite understand. Neither could he, to be fair.

"They only do it because they _have_ to, not because they _want_ to!" And for a moment the Queen sounded as frustrated and confused as Rumpelstiltskin felt trying to puzzle out this predicament, before her voice lowered again. "It's not real."

"I'm sorry, but what exactly do you want from me?"

There was a beat of silence, and the Queen sighed.

"Nothing...there's nothing you can give me."

And with another few steps and the ringing of the door's bell, she was gone. Rumpelstiltskin stayed in the back room for a few long moments, trying to make sense of everything he'd just heard. It was more than a little frightening trying to imagine a curse that affected _the Dark One_. As far as Rumpelstiltskin could tell Belle had been immune to everything from arrows to the chest to the poisons she regularly worked with in her laboratory.

And Queen Regina had cast this curse?

That was very, very, very bad...but what sort of curse was it? And what hand did Belle have in it all?

Well, the broad answer to that would be "Of course she had a hand in it" because there was little in the Enchanted Forest Belle wasn't involved in. But _how much_ this time?

With more questions than ever, Rumpelstiltskin wasn't encouraged at all to leave the building. Especially now that he knew the Evil Queen was running amok in a town of her own design..

* * *

Nothing changed.

Nothing happened.

Nothing changes.

Nothing happens.

Nothing will _ever_ change.

_Nothing would ever happen._

Regina used to ignore all those times Belle said, "Magic always comes with a price." Now she had a sneaking suspicion that _this_ was the price of her victory: Total victory, unopposed. After years of manipulation and strategizing and scheming, Regina had grown accustomed to having an enemy at every window trying to break in. She was always alert, always ready to be challenged...

An eternity in this? This would be _hell_.

Snow White wouldn't even protest bumping into Regina on the street; _She apologized and said she was wrong._

Belle didn't even know she was the ultimate puppet-master. The Dark One. She was just the cold, distant landlady and bookshop/antiques dealer without love in her barren heart.

That had surprised Regina more than anything. Belle always had a loophole, a clause, a back-up plan. But she was as addle-brained as the rest of the townsfolk, completely unaware of their cursed natures.

Regina jammed her hands into her coat pockets as she swept down the street and suddenly felt a foreign object inside.

It was the little lanyard thingie Owen had given her.

The two strangers in Storybrooke were supposed to be moving on soon. Just like she wanted. Strangers were unpredictable, unpredictability meant the stability of her curse was threatened...

But...

It couldn't hurt once, could it? One dinner with _autonomous human beings_ who could come up with original answers to questions and unique reactions. Not just different variations of the same old performance. Regina knew the bare essentials of cooking because she'd hung around their kindly old cook as a child, (until Cora fired/killed her for teaching Regina "dirty work",) and those vague prickly hints of her curse giving little tips on how to survive this world could help her make up a dinner. And she knew the apple turnover receipe by heart. (No irony lost on her, now, of course.)

One dinner.

And then the Flynn's could go on their way again, out of town. Yes.

Regina stepped up to the device known as a _'pay-phone'_. Hmm. If she could just figure out the right method of operating this contraption to summon Mr. Flynn, than everything would be set.

Assuming she had enough nickels...whatever those were.

* * *

Lacey had noticed that Gold was a little jumpy today. Well, he was always jumpy but not quite so much. She was glad hardly anyone ever came in on Mondays, otherwise she suspected he'd be hiding under the counter all day.

When she came back from her lunch break, she found Gold almost calmly sitting at the counter reading. He'd taken to doing that lately, but since he also organized the books on the shelves and put them back, so be it. Storybrooke didn't have a library, it had been closed for...for as long as the clock tower had been broken, at least. Years. Decades maybe.

So buying Gold's shop, Old World Books, had been a sound investment when he was floundering fianacially. Occassionaly Lacey still got sneers on the street and gossipy whispers about it, but not one of the "decent townsfolk" bothered to help Gold out when his son was dying and he was struggling to just pay back the loan he'd taken out.

Storybrooke and it's petty double-standards. Why in the seven hells had she ever come back to this dump when she left?

Maybe she had a streak of masochism she'd yet to uncover. Maybe she enjoyed the big-fish-little-pond sway she had over the townsfolk. That would rule out the masochistic theory then, but Lacey wasn't 100% if she was a sadist or not. She did like making them uncomfortable and watching old classmates like Katherine Nolan beg her-Lacey French,-for mercy when they laughed and ostracized her all throughout their school years.

Hmm.

Yes, very sadistic, then.

Or maybe a little of both.

Putting those thoughts in the corner of her mind to examine later, she waltzed up to the counter and leant her elbows on the edge. The soft thump made Gold jerk up and Lacey wondered if he was some kind of abuse victim. So jumpy.

"What are you doing, Gold?" she asked.

It wasn't as satisfying to smirk at Gold and make him drop his eyes, but she did it anyway. Old habits die hard. Or something.

"Um, r-reading, ma'am. Sorry," he made to close the book and Lacey waved her hand, backing away from the counter.

"Read what you like as long as your work gets done. It's nice to know someone in this town reads Jane Austen."

Gold peeked at the cover depicting a pair of young ladies. Sense and Sensibilities _._ Not Lacey's favorite Austen, she preferred Pride and Prejudice, but it was interesting to see Gold reading it anyway. The other day she'd caught him reading Alice in Wonderland. She couldn't recall her shopkeeper being much of a bookworm, but it made sense. He'd owned the bookstore part of Old World Books and Antiques long before she bought the place.

"Oh. O-okay, I will. Work I mean, um, th-thank you."

Lacey smiled when she entered the back room and seated herself in her chair.

She enjoyed watching men make stammering fools of themselves especially, but there was something sweeter and shyer about Gold's stutter. She wasn't sure if it was because he was a shy person, or if he was simply afraid of messing up around her, but he didn't seem to regard her as the unholy terror that most of Storybrooke saw.

Perhaps someday she should bring him back a lunch from Granny's...

* * *

Three days since the curse began.

Rumpelstiltskin wrote this down in a notebook he'd unearthed in the only room in the upper floor he didn't dwell in. It was slightly smaller than Gold's room was, but it was painted a bright yellow with sports posters on the walls and hand-drawn pictures on a corkboard. The bed was smaller, sized for a child, with a colorful quilt that was layered with dust. Everything was dusty in here. From the dresser covered in little figures to the model "airplane" hanging from the ceiling.

The buzz at the back of his mind went haywire, throwing suggestions at him: _'This is your son's room, he died. He died and you couldn't help him. He's gone. Gone forever. Ms. French's money couldn't save him, it just doomed you. You failed him. You should have-'_

But Baelfire had never been interested in little figures or airplanes or...whatever basketball was. That didn't make sense. It was that irrationality that allowed Rumpelstiltskin to push down that strange buzz and soldier on. Such as he could. He avoided the dresser after seeing small clothing, for a child, but in a desk drawer he uncovered the leafs of paper bound with a spiral of wire. (A note book.) So, the spinner sat at Gold's kitchen table (his, he supposed, though he was loathed to start believing anything this curse presented if his son had died,) and began to write at the very top of the page, using a pencil he found in a kitchen drawer full of odds and ends.

**_'The Queen has cast some kind of curse that took everyone to a town in a foreign land. I remember the Enchanted Forest, but Belle does not. In this land she is Miss Lacey French, business owner, and I am her shopkeeper. Apparently my name is Gold. Queen Regina is a mayor, and she is also aware of the curse--'_ **

It wasn't much, at all, but it was all Rumpelstiltskin had at the moment.

His stomach gurgled, reminding him he hadn't eaten lunch. In an effort to stretch the food he had, Rumpelstiltskin had been skipping lunch. But dinner still sounded very good, so he set down the pencil and began poking through the cabinets. If the sudden image of stringy yellowish threads covered with chunky tomato sauce was to be believed, he could make a good meal by boiling those crunchy little noodle sticks.

Well, if he followed the directions on the package at least...

Which, by the grace of some god up there, he did. Phew. He dumped some of the noodles onto a plate and ladeled some sauce from the jar marked "marina sauce" on top. It didn't seem very...nautical. Why call it marina sauce? Was their some kind of fish he couldn't detect? Was it popular at port cities in this land? Hmm...

Maybe he should try following his mental-map of town to the market and buy some food soon. He was down to the bag of rice and a few mysterious metal cans, (including that "Spam",) plus a quarter of a loaf of bread and the meager contents of his "refrigerator". What an odd name for a cold cupboard...

Fitting for an odd world.

Fitting for an odd curse.

It almost made him wish for the old days of being treated lower than dirt as the cowardly spinner in a Frontlands village trying to scrape a life together for his son...

_**Almost...** _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter V: In which Gold ventures out and spots a wolf, and Regina tries not to acknowledge a mistake...


	5. V. Brewster's Grocer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When we last left off, Regina attempts to write over the price of her victory, and Gold begins to see connections in Storybrooke...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm in the midst of a crazy-ass week, I'm not 100% if anything will be posted or not after this chapter until next Friday. So if I'm late next week, I hope you all understand. Now on with the show!

When Regina told Graham to "take care" of Mr. Flynn, she didn't actually mean kill him at the time. Unfortunately, whether it was a subliminal command from the darkness in her heart or the fact that she'd had Graham execute a prisoner or two in the Enchanted Forest...that's sorta what happened.

Well that was what happened, not "sorta".

In the back of the former Queen's mind, she could almost here a taunting giggle and Belle saying, _"Be careful what you wish for!"_

So, glowing organ in palm, Regina directed Graham to dispose of the man's body in the woods where no one traveled, (thank gods, she'd finally found a use for the rigid routine this town was stuck in day in and day out!) and then rose with him in the sheriff's car back to her place before taking him out of thrall.

She wasn't in the mood for the eager bedmate she'd crafted from this curse tonight, so she planted the idea that they'd mixed things up and fooled around in his cruiser and called it a night since she had a meeting in the morning.

Though she did not.

Once Regina locked her door, though no one would dare trespass on her property, she somehow made it to the living room with the austere leather sofas before flopping down most ungracefully and burying her face in her hands.

What the actual hell?

Had she turned so much into her mother that she really tried forcing a child-an innocent, sweet little boy,-to stay with her? Shit. Shit! Now not only would Owen have to _find_ civilization outside of Storybrooke, (he'd never find here again if he did, the Evil Queen in her crowed before she punched it back down,) he'd be an orphan. She'd orphaned a child.

Sure, in the Enchanted Forest, it could be argued that Regina had orphaned _scores_ of children in her single-minded quest for vengeance. But it felt...wrong, to have orphaned a hapless child and be directly responsible for the death of his equally hapless father in this land. It was, what? Three days into what was supposed to be her happy ending?

_Shit._

This...this didn't bode well.

But, and Regina tried to lift her head up as she poured a generous amount of apple cider in a crystal cut tumbler, it was over. Owen couldn't find Storybrooke again. The curse remained strong. The threat was eliminated. It was over. For the best. Really. For the best. And over. All over.

She just had to work with this never-ending cycle of monotonous victory, and she could find her happiness.

For the best.

It took nearly a week for Regina to start believing that, and more than a little hard cider.

* * *

The strangers in the town of Storybrooke-a less likely happening than an alien invasion or a Bigfoot sightimg,-quickly began fading from memory. It was no secret that the Mayor wanted them out, and some people said they saw Sheriff Graham's police cruiser chasing the clunky Flynns' vehicle out of town a while ago.

 _'Clearly not a game of fast turns,'_ Lacey snickered to herself when she'd heard the news. The only police car in Storybrooke was practically a metal box on wheels, and the Flynns' van was even worse. Amazing nobody toppled over and crashed.

But, with the event already...a week? A month? Old news, at any rate, unworthy of retaining and fading from the consciousness of Storybrooke more and more by the hour. Really, the only things that ever changed in this town were Regina Mills mood swings and the collection of clouds in the sky.

Well, that wasn't entirely true, and Belle was rather displeased by this third inclusion.

Gold had always been a thin man. He was small and wiry, with twitchy hands, and sometimes Lacey wondered if, before whatever happened to his ankle, he was a pacer too. He had the palpable energy of a man who paced when he was nervous. Gold was well into middle-age though, (Lacey would deny nearly spitting tea on the documents she dug up while checking his background that gave his age at nearly fifty, a solid ten years older than she would've fingered him for,) and if anything, Lacey thought that her sole employee's weight might start to gradually increase as his metabolism slowed down.

Instead, it would seem, Gold was losing weight.

Rather noticeably.

It was doubtful anyone else noticed, mind. The town of Storybrooke was supposed to be famous for fishing and canning seafood, but "Home of the Ignorant" had a nice, truthful ring to it, too. Unless they needed him to make change or ring up a book, or perhaps hold the door, not one customer paid him any mind more than necessary. To be fair, often times it was like the man could turn invisible, but seriously? How had no one else noticed this?

Gold's already prominent cheekbones sharpened above the hollows in his cheeks. The delicate bones in his wrist poked out and his clean-but-worn clothes grew looser and looser off his increasingly gaunt frame.

It only took a day, two at most, for Lacey to grab a second hamburger from Granny's on her lunch break, ignoring the quirk in Ruby's finely groomed brow, and drag the grease-spotted bag back to the shop with her. She dropped it on the counter in front of Gold, who nearly set the copy of a Tolkien book she couldn't read the title of flying in shock.

In addition to the rather rudely slammed lunch bag, Lacey slapped down a twenty dollar bill so Andrew Jackson could stare at the underweight Scotsman with her.

"This is lunch. Eat it, and then go buy food. I can be accused of not paying you enough, but I know it's enough to buy groceries with."

"Wh-what?"

"Have your ears already starved to death? I said go to the grocers, and buy yourself some, I dunno, a bag of Cheetos and Spam for all I care. You look too waifish for a man in his forties. Besides, it'll be bloody awkward if I have to tell Madam Mayor's pet reporter that my live-in employee died from malnutrition above my shop."

In hindsight, she was bitching more than she was arguing the value of eating regular meals. But damn it, she thought he'd gotten back on his feet after his son died...how long ago was that now? Well, it hardly mattered. What did matter was that the damn man ate something because as it stood he looked thin enough a strong breeze might knock him over.

And compassion was hardly her strong suit, so, sorry if it didn't come out more kindly.

But then Gold actually...smiled? A little. He tugged the bag towards him and picked the twenty off the counter. "Thank you, Miss French," he said quietly.

Lacey quirked a brow. "You'll go after work, right?"

Something like fear bled into his expression. And for once Lacey didn't think it was her doing.

"I...I will. Yes m'l-Ma'am. Yes ma'am," Gold nodded slowly.

Lacey gave a satisfied nod back and walked into the back. She'd give him another reminder before she went home and if he didn't take it then, no skin off her back...nope...

* * *

Rumpelstiltskin had stepped out the shop twice. Well, once, because opening the door to stick your head out probably didn't really count. The only time he'd stepped outside was when he opened the door for a mousy young woman with short-cropped black hair when her arms were full of arts and crafts books and a large purse. The world seemed much large and colder than it did looking through a window and he quickly limped back inside.

The spinner spent the better part of his day after eating the meal Belle-Ms. French, he corrected himself,-had brought him, trying to screw up the courage to walk outside again.

It was irritating because that little buzz at the base of his skull knew just where to go. Down to the next street corner and across. Or, down the other way straight to the apothecary down the street. (Drugstore, odd name since they sold a bit of everything.) But Rumpelstiltskin couldn't go to either the grocer or the "drugstore" if he didn't get out the damned door first!

He decided on the grocers, because by the time Ms. French was leaving and he was expected to go, it was six o'clock. Rumpelstiltskin's village may have been a small, quiet one at it's most prosperous, but this Storybrooke place seemed to shut down at sunset with maybe a dozen people out after dark. The drugstore, with it's various sundries, might have more people in it than the simple grocers.

Less people was better.

The autumnal weather that had been there when Rumpelstiltskin woke up was rapidly cooling. His calendar showed that it was moving into late November, roughly a month since he'd woken up. No one acted unusual, and Rumpelstiltskin was almost starting to question his sanity. But as he limped out the door on his cane, wrapped in a rather battered coat that at least kept the chill at bay, his heart thudding in his ears as he crossed the first bit of road with the tall lanterns (street lights,) flickering to life overhead, Rumpelstiltskin saw something.

Or rather, _someone_.

Clicking down the street across from him in tall, red heeled shoes and frilly socks, wearing sheer stockings that he could just see the tops of from under her scandalously short little scarlet dress, (even by this world's standards,) a man's black jacket wrapped around her, doubtlessly belonging to the man with his arm wrapped around her suavely, was...Red.

Rumpelstiltskin wouldn't have recognized her, at first, but her hair was frizzed up like her wild curls had been in the Dark Castle the one time they met, a bright red streak amidst the black tresses. She had happened to look his direction for a moment and that was all it took to recognize her face, as painted as it was. She flashed him a wolfish grin while her young man droned on about something Rumpelstiltskin couldn't make out, winked saucily, and carried on like she did that all the time to men on the street.

So there was Belle and the Evil Queen, and there was Red...who else was in this world?

Rumpelstiltskin realized, and felt immediate guilt, that his son could be in this world. Somewhere. But he'd been such a bloody coward hiding in the shop he hadn't bothered to go and look for him. Only...only there was that room in his flat, the child's room. An empty, abandoned room. And the insistent reminders that he had died...from what?

If one of those horseless carriages hadn't whooshed by, scaring him half to death, Rumpelstiltskin might've stood there all night pondering.

But it was getting colder, and he would rather not crack open that can of Spam yet...

When he came to the end of the street, Rumpelstiltskin spotted the shop across the street. There was a white-and-green striped awning stretched over the front with **BREWSTER'S GROCERY** across it. The windows were plastered with advertisements for steaks and produce. Making very certain no more of those car monsters were roaring down the road, Rumpelstiltskin crossed over and slid inside the door. This shop had a cluster of little silver jingly bells jangling on the back of the door, and a little boy's head popping up from behind the counter.

"Hi!"

Rumpelstiltskin paused, smiling at the child. He had tousled blonde hair and a gap-toothed smile, no more than nine years old. "How do you do?"

"Okay. Say, do you know what six times three is?"

"None of that!" a woman called sharply from somewhere behind the aisles in the store. "Your homework is your work Charlie Brewster! Do it yourself!"

The boy's head went back down under the counter just before a short, portly older woman bustled into view. She wore a dark purple dress covered with little white dots, down past her knees, and a soft off-white cardigan, and a tan apron over it all. Her hair was fluffy and white, and she had the same blue eyes as the little boy. She gave Rumpelstiltskin a smile and said, "Don't you pay my boy no mind at all, ah, Mr. Gold, is it?"

Smiling gamely, Rumpelstiltskin nodded. One benefit "Mr. Gold" had was that his name was pronounceable, at least more than _Rumpelstiltskin_ was.

"Right, well, help yourself," Mrs. Brewster nodded, scurrying over to the counter, presumably to correct young Charlie's assumption that he could pester strangers for answers to his homework. Whatever homework was.

There was a basket woven from thin steel wires, with plastic grips on the handles. Rumpelstiltskin grabbed one of these, mainly because there was a sign encouraging you to _TAKE ONE_. Hobbling further into the store, which was a bit larger than the bottom floor of Ms. French's shop, Rumpelstiltskin found a variety of items were being sold.

Some he knew right off. Vegetables, bread, and meat were easy. Although he'd never seen bread sold in a flimsy bag twisted shut before. And the eggs in the lightweight container system were rarely damaged at all. Instead of raw meat on display, though, there was a large, open cold case, like the refrigerator without doors and much bigger, with packages of meat wrapped in a thin, see-through material.

There were also many more kinds than he was used to-beef, chicken, and pork. Rumpelstiltskin had maybe eaten pork two or three times in his life, mostly, he'd eaten sheep and game and fish. Beef was rare and expensive, and chickens were more useful for laying eggs. There was only a little bit of lamb for sale, and he had never heard of some of the fish for sale. He grabbed what was cheapest or familiar and then went to explore the other case.

This cold case had dairy products. Rumpelstiltskin faltered there. There had been an old cheesemaker that lived next door to Charlotte and Arachne, who would usually cheerfully give him a tiny wedge of cheese when a young Rumpelstiltskin went over with spools of strong twine. All his life, because his village was full of sheep above all other livestock, Rumpelstiltskin had eaten goats cheese and drunk goats milk. The mostly empty jug of milk in his refrigerator had not been goats milk, and the one package of cheese lacked the tang, but for the life of him, Rumpelstiltskin couldn't figure out what animal it was from.

If the cheerful painted face of the heifer above the dairy case was any indicator...the answer was a cow.

What was with this place?

The shelves lining the aisles were full of packaged goods, the likes of which Rumpelstiltskin had never seen. What the hell was Velveeta? Rumpelstiltskin stuck with the raw ingredients he could identify, but he managed to recognize some of the spices on the "baking aisle" from the Dark Castle. One or two went in his basket. (He had to put it on the floor if he wanted a free hand to put the stuff in it.) The flour was sold in paper bags, of all things, with many different varieties. Self-rising, cake, whole-wheat. Rumpelstiltskin stuck with the innocuous all-purpose flour. And then, while he was exploring, he also picked up the crinkly bag with "Cheetos" stamped on the front with a colorful orange cat.

Apparently it was some sort of cheesy, crunch finger food. Hmm.

Everything had been very handily labeled with a price, and as they had been so clear Rumpelstiltskin felt it would have been rude to try and haggle with Mrs. Brewster. He'd tallied the total in his head while he'd been shopping, and when Mrs. Brewster came to the same total, everything seemed perfectly fair and within budget. (His budget had been the slip of paper marked 20 that Ms. French gave him, plus an addition 10 paper that he found in a leather contraption that folded in half. A wallet. Which was a weird word, what did a wall have anything to do with this pocket-sized folio?

"Here's your change, Mr. Gold," Mrs. Brewster smiled pleasantly, handing the handful of coins back to him. "Have a good night."

"Thank you," Rumpelstiltskin smiled back. He felt out of practice. Who was the last non-Belle person he smiled at? In hindsight, he probably could have asked Mrs. Brewster if she knew what happened to his son...

But instead, he limped home, because he suspected that this was something he didn't want to ask about just yet. He had a sickening suspicion in his gut. He wanted to live in ignorance a little longer, with hope.

Juggling the heavy brown paper sack and the keys he'd never used to unlock the door before (while still holding his cane,) was a trick. One he managed, eventually. Rumpelstiltskin locked it back, when he was through, which was much easier from this side, and limped up the stairs to his flat. It was relatively easy from there, though it was nearing seven-thirty and he felt inexplicable drained.

It wasn't as hard to sit behind a counter and make change for people as it was to interact on the other side of the situation. Rumpelstiltskin sat down on the ugly couch with a fresh pear and got out his notebook, adding the new information he had on a fresh page.

_**'Today I went to a shop called Brewster's Grocery. I bought food there at Ms. French's insistence. On the street, I saw Red. I can't say that I knew her very well, but something about her is very odd here. She was dressed in a very short dress and those tall shoes the Queen and 'Ms. French' favor now. Mrs. Brewster, the proprietor as far as I can tell, is a very pleasant woman with a young son named Charlie. The way food is sold here is unusual, and they seem to exclusively sell cow's milk dairy here. I also found some sort of identification article in a wallet with my face on it, called an 'ID'...'** _

Rumpelstiltskin pulled out the card and gave it a once over. He found it in his dresser. That little hint in his mind seemed to say that he shouldn't leave the house without it and the contents. The card was what fascinated Rumpelstiltskin the most: It had a perfectly captured image of his own face in one corner, and a list of information beside it.

It listed a year he was born, (1934? Hmm, he was forty-nine and his calendar declared it the year 1983, that was right,) his height and weight, the color of his eyes and hair, and some other things he didn't understand. He jotted this down in his notes and then let his head fall back to stare at the ceiling.

**What the hell was going on in this town?**

 

 

[Prompts for this fic?](http://of-princes-and-savages.tumblr.com/ask)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter VI: In which the town citizens are unusual, a discovery shakes Rumpelstiltskin's faith, and a little boy's selfish decision set the Savior on her path to destiny...
> 
> Accepting prompts for this 'verse here and on Tumblr if you've got an idea!


	6. VI. Tracing Patterns

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When we last left off, Regina did some clean-up, Gold went shopping for groceries, and winter is coming...

The shop was closed on Sundays, and only half a day on Saturday. Rumpelstiltskin suspected that Ms. French used this shop as a base of operations rather than an actual source of income. He felt slightly more confident, enough to take walks around town to explore once Old World Books and Antiques was closed for the day. And he had heard a few nasty comments about "The Monster of Storybrooke", their landlady Ms. Lacey French.

That was familiar. And, intellectually, Rumpelstiltskin knew the majority of Belle's deals were advantageous to herself above all others. But he also knew Belle's contracts were specific and detailed...but only if you read the fine print.

There were a number of people in town that reminded Rumpelstiltskin of people Belle had talked about, actually.

The most obvious example was the waitress Ruby Lucas. Three times, Rumpelstiltskin had found himself in the diner sitting in a corner booth, and each time he was more certain Ruby was the wolf girl he mended a cape for.

She certainly wasn't wearing it _now_. Her clothes were all revealing, tight, and above all, red in color. Rubies, he recalled also, were red jewels. Red had mentioned a grandmother that raised her, and Ruby Lucas lived somewhere in private quarters of her grandmother's inn. Mrs. Lucas was a tough-looking elderly woman, stout with a stern eye behind her spectacles. Grandmother and granddaughter alike sniped back and forth, over behavior, dress, unfairness...everything really.

The sheriff (which was something like a knight, only elected by the people, what a novel concept,) was a tall, dashing young man with a scruffy beard and Northern accent similar-yet-different to Rumpelstiltskin's own. He was master of the dartboard game in the diner and Ruby often flirted with him in the two times Rumpelstiltskin sat in the diner.

Once, Rumpelstiltskin stumbled across the only pub in Storybrooke: The Rabbit Hole.

The irony was not lost on him that it referenced Alice's descent into the madness of Wonderland. The atmosphere inside was so much like the pubs that Rumpelstiltskin had to shuffle through to bring Milah home, he almost left. But at the same time, it was familiar. So he sat at a table out of the way, ignoring the crinkled nose the blonde waitress gave him when he asked for a water, and people-watched.

There was the standard mix of flirty women, drunken brutes, young men who felt they were invincible, and the embittered souls drowning their misery in ale. Or whatever passed for ale here. Like everything else, this land seemed to have a wide variety of choices.

A sticky laminated menu with a rabbit's silhouette at the top listed all the available drinks. Rumpelstiltskin never knew there were so many kinds of beer. That wasn't even counting hard spirits like whiskey and...what the hell was vodka? Then there were these "cocktail" things that sounded absurd. Why mix fruit juice into your liquor?

Ugh. Even drinking in this land was complicated.

All the more reason for him to stay sober, probably. Rumpelstiltskin sat watching condensation roll down his glass of ice-water, prodding the bumpy skin of the fruit wedge stuck on the rim. A lemon. He tried to bite the flesh but it was so sour he probably made an absurd, scrunched up face. The lemony taste stuck to his tongue even after rinsing his mouth out, and not long after, he limped home.

There was a store not too far from the "bar", that had three red dots over a light-up sign reading Dead Man's Liquor. Rumpelstiltskin saw a familiar large black Cadillac parked outside it and lo and behold, Ms. French strutted out with a bottle in her hand. The door almost crushed a short, stocky bearded man who Rumpelstiltskin thought he'd seen in the Rabbit Hole earlier, staggering away into the night with his own paper-bagged purchase.

The Cadillac rolled off giving no indication that she had seen him. And that was becoming the new normal for Rumpelstiltskin.

Back home, he had always had a gift for making himself small and unseen. Even before it became a necessary skill for the village coward. But people could still remember his name, and sometimes they still saw him.

Something about him in this world was very, very forgettable. He made a trip to Mrs. Brewster's shop at least twice a month, but she always forgot his name. And so did her son. And so did Mary-Margaret Blanchard when she came in for an arts and crafts magazine once a month.

Rumpelstiltskin wasn't sure if the Queen, er, _Madam Mayor_ , would notice him. Actually, he was rather hoping she wouldn't. It was another reason he tried to avoid the sheriff. Belle had made her disgust clear over "the Queen's pet Huntsman" enough for him to make a connection.

His trips out were cut short by the darkness and the ice coating the sidewalks, he slipped twice and was lucky he didn't break anything in the fall. At one point, Ms. French told him to go ahead when he needed to go to the market, and that she could close up. on her own.

"Go out and get back before everything freezes again. It's not like I'll be inundated with customers anyway."

Writing down the patterns and his own thoughts made things clearer, but not enough to understand what was happening yet. It was a long winter and Rumpelstiltskin had done a lot of thinking. Enough that he was starting to question his sanity, because when the teenagers were all let out for something called Christmas break at school, he stood across the street and watched all the kids go. Not one of them was Baelfire.

In fact, no one in town seemed to think it odd he was missing a son. He should have had one, there was an abandoned room in his flat after all.

_And then..._

It was early January. A "new year" in this land. Well into a long, cold winter and something like two months since the curse began. The heaters and sweaters and waterproof boots of this land were a blessing. It was easy to pretend it wasn't bitingly cold if one was curled up under a blanket in a warm flat instead of fighting off drafts in a hovel. His ankle made it difficult, but Rumpelstiltskin still went slogging through the snow most Sundays and Saturdays to explore the town.

At first, he thought it was another park he was walking through. It had a broad, wrought iron arch over the entrance and a big fence with spikes detering climbers. Everything was covered in a few inches of snow, so it took him a moment to recognize that the stone slabs were grave markers rather than statuary or ruins.

Then he was drawn towards one plot, with a layer of snow on the top but the writing still very clear.

 

**_Bailey Gold, Beloved Son._ **

 

Rumpelstiltskin didn't remember falling to his knees, but he did. He fell on his knees and gaped at the words, because he was the only Gold in town. (He had gotten bored and read something called "a phone book" behind the counter a few weeks ago, listing every resident in town.) Unless...

The room.

That voice in his head.

The way no one spoke about his son, should he have one.

Bae was dead.

* * *

Lacey came into work that morning to find her shopkeeper sitting with his face in his hands. It was so different that she stopped in the middle of the shop and stared like a complete yokel.

"Uhh...Gold? You...okay...?"

Gold picked his head up and took a deep breath. His eyes were bloodshot above dark circles, and he looked very, very old.

"I...I, uh, m-my son...he, uh, he...died."

Lacey bit her lip uncertainly. Was it the anniversary of his son's death? No it couldn't be. He had died...um...well _shit_ , maybe it was. Lacey had never bothered to remember that morbid date in the history of how she bought this place. Okay. What was the protocol here?

"I'm...sorry?"

Lacey wished she had a twin to come stomping up and slap her across the face right now. She didn't often feel guilt or shame, rarely did anything to cause them in herself, but even she knew that was vastly inadequate to say to a parent that lost a child they raised from birth.

Gold gave her a watery smile. Lacey was just selfish enough to wish he wouldn't cry. She wouldn't know how to be in the same room as him then.

"I know it might seem odd to you, but would you believe I just remembered that today?"

Lacey thought back to when her mother died. For a good two years afterwards, anything that reminded her of her mother or things her mother would like had made her burst into tears. That was long before she crushed down her emotions behind an iron wall decorated with "no tresspassing" signs prohibiting visitors into her heart.

"Grief is eternal. It just dulls to where you don't notice it as keenly."

She turned to walk away, to escape the unpleasantly emotional atmosphere, and heard her shopkeeper say quietly, "Is that a quote, ma'am?"

Lacey peered over her shoulder. His eyes were still red, but Gold had on that fragile, gentle smile that made her think of her favorite pajamas for some reason. Something warm and soft and well-worn to the point where it might tear if you pulled too much at the seams. Something comforting, but nothing you wanted to be caught in by the public.

"I made it up, I am rather brilliant," she shrugged carelessly.

And damn if that smile didn't turn into a tiny grin before she could turn away, that softness spreading into his chocolate brown eyes. "You always were, Miss French."

* * *

The foster home was a gray, cold place. Everything was gray. The bed frames, the floor, the walls, the sheets they had to put on the bed.

Little August stood out with his red hair. Of course... _August_ wasn't his real name. The 7-year-old picked a name off a calendar he saw hanging up in the police station. His real name was Pinocchio, but the police didn't seem to buy into that.

Emma didn't need to be introduced on account of her baby blanket had her name on it.

The grownups talked a lot over Pinocchio's head. They insisted his parents abandoned them, and when he said he didn't have a mom, they started saying his father was irresponsible. One lady looked at him like he sprouted a second head when he said his papa wasn't irresponsible, he was protecting Pinocchio from the Queen's curse by sending him through a magic wardrobe to protect the Princess-turned-Queen, only she gave birth early and so now he had to protect Emma so she could grow up to break the curse and save everyone.

After that lady came back and told him it was okay, and that no one would hurt him here, and he should tell the truth, Pinocchio realized that people in the Land Without Magic were stupid and had to be lied to. They believed lies, not the truth.

So, he became August. And his father had drove away from him and baby Emma, who was not his sister but a daughter of a friend of his papa's, and then the nice ranger found them in the woods. She found that much more acceptable and shooed away the man eavesdropping with a notepad outside with a scowl.

Then August and Emma found themselves in a house with four other kids, all older than August. The lady was nice enough, but her husband was very stern. He didn't like anyone touching anything if they didn't come to the house with it, and called them theives when they did. So...that meant if August touched anything that wasn't the silverware at dinner or his bedsheets, he had to be very careful what he did.

Emma was a baby, so she had it easier than anybody in most ways. She didn't have to make up beds or do laundry or wash dishes. In other ways she had it harder, because somebody had to take care of her since she couldn't do anything. August was a little fuzzy on how babies were made, being carved from wood and brought to life. But wouldn't it be easier if people could skip being soft, squirmy little babies and go straight to being healthy little kids. Like him.

If they could, then Emma would sleep in a bed and not the rickety crib.

August found the toolbox and took a moment to get Emma to stop crying. She liked it when he made silly faces, especially when he hooked his finger in either cheek and stuck his tongue out, that one made her giggle. Then he was going to tighten the bolts up...

But then the man caught his arm too tightly and scowled, saying nothing in this house belonged to him and he should never forget that.

That was when Mitchell Haynes came in. Mitchell was the biggest kid, about fourteen or so, with shaggy black hair and a big round face. He was also blamed a lot for having "sticky-fingers" and proved his point by holding up a fat roll of green money he'd stolen from the sock drawer.

It was enough to by bus tickets for everyone...

Except Emma.

But Mitchell didn't want her along because they couldn't take care of a baby. And Pinocchio was supposed to stay behind and take care of Emma. Papa said he had to.

Only...Papa wasn't here.

And the lady _liked_ Emma. She would take care of her. And she was a grownup lady, she was better at taking care of babies than he was.

So...

August leaned over the crib, wiggling his fingers in front of the baby's face. Emma was a cute baby. She'd probably grow up to be very pretty, someday, and she'd do better with somebody who knew how to take care of her.

"Goodbye Emma."

For years, August Booth would look back at that moment and recall how tiny fingers curled around his fingers tight, like she told him to stay. Then he pushed that thought aside and drank more, played more, and continued to enjoy his life of pleasant carefree leisure.

**_Even when the string around his neck felt too tight..._ **

 

 

[Prompts?](http://of-princes-and-savages.tumblr.com/ask)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter VII: An identity crisis, Lacey DOES NOT have hurt feelings, and Gold makes an important discovery...


	7. VII. The Doubts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When we last left off, Rumpelstiltskin suffers a crisis of doubts amidst a boost of confidence, and outside of town, Emma was abandoned for the second time...

It felt like a bucket of cold water when he found the grave.

**Bailey Gold.**

The name was unfamiliar, alien. But the hint in the back of his mind, that had yet to lead him astray, continued insisting that it was real. His son's name. A slight, small-framed boy with curly dark hair and big brown eyes. Inisted, further, that he had married Bailey Gold's mother when she fell pregnant fifteen years ago. She grew disenchanted with him and ran off with younger man, and Gold moved his son to Storybrooke. Shortly after, Bailey grew ill, and was diagnosed with leukemia. Rumpelstiltskin was unfamiliar with such an affliction but a quick perusal of a medical journal in the shop showed that it was very, very bad blood disease, and treatment was expensive.

That was all such a grotesque mockery of his history that he refused to believe it.

At first.

But as the winter bore on, his innate cowardice reared it's ugly head. Doubts began to gnaw at his convictions. Fear began to rise. What if...what if nothing was wrong with Storybrooke? What if nothing unusual was going on? What if something was wrong with...

_Him._

No one acted like anything was unusual in this town. They went about their daily business, they had jobs, they ate and shopped. If every time he went to Brewster's Grocery little Charlie Brewster popped up behind the counter and asked the answer to a math problem, what of it? Some children were just bad at sums. And if his mother always shuffled out and scolded him gently, then bid him a good shopping experience after asking, _"Don't you pay my boy no mind at all, ah, Mr. Gold, is it?"_ well, she was a harried mother, that was expected.

If, by the time March rolled around, the snow melting away and dead brown grass revealing itself, and Rumpelstiltskin could choose which day of the month a person would come in to buy what book or magazine, or heaven forbid, make a deal with Ms. French, then that was just all small town routine, wasn't it?

Maybe he was Mr. Gold.

But...

That left one rather important question...

What was his name?

His ID had a date of birth, his height, his weight, the color of his eyes, address...but not his given name. Just R. Gold. In a rare fit of nerve, he'd even dug out the property deed he'd signed over to Ms. French in one of her filing cabinets. A crooked, chickenscratch signature spelled out R. Gold. But what did the R stand for?

Surely not **_Rumpelstiltskin_**.

Every single person to address him, if they remember who he was, called him Gold. If they remembered that much. But he lived a solitary life, the only person he was exposed to for more than thirty minutes each day was Ms. French, so why shouldn't they forget about the old hermit of a shopkeeper?

So, now, without remembering anything clearly of his life, and fearing that his memories were delusions...Rumpelstiltskin tried to be Gold.

Oh, he still lived in paralyzing fear of the mayor finding him. He didn't get out much past after-hours, and he was too timid to socialize so he had no friends. Although Ruby Lucas had once plopped down across from him in his corner booth in the Rabbit Hole and leaned on the table, nearly giving him a glimpse down her bodice, and she tried to flirt with him.

She was a beautiful girl to be sure, but too young and too... _vivacious_ , for him. Also, Ruby Lucas was renowned as the town harlot, town bicycle, town whore...honestly Rumpelstiltskin didn't see _that_ , but she was a flirt. Apparently in this world a woman needn't be a maid before she bedded a man. (As long as she didn't get pregnant like Ashley Boyd...) Only Ruby's revolving-door reputation blotted out the good qualities she had to the townsfolk, especially her grandmother.

He was too bashful to say a word to Miss Lucas until a large, looming man who was handsome, perhaps, but quite greasy and tipsy-looking. The sort of man Milah had favored because he looked like a man. So she said. Ruby didn't seem swayed, rolling her green eyes and suddenly becoming very interested in chasing the little green berry thing in the bottom of her triangular glass with a tiny plastic sword.

"Hey sexy lady," the man grinned. "When you're done with Gramps over here, why don't you come with me and I'll show you a _real_ good time."

Rumpelstiltskin sank back farther into the vinyl cushions, trying to make himself invisible. But Ruby sucked her teeth and glared up at the big man with a savage grin. "Hey Keith, guess what? I'm not interested in _chlamydia_ this evening, so you're out of luck. Buh-bye!"

Almost choking on his tongue, Rumpelstiltskin he held back an unexpected laugh.

The big greasy man, Keith, scowled. The ugly look suited him better than the false charm. "Fine! Suit yourself you bitch! Don't think I'll forget this, that you'd rather get it from this little _troll_ rather than-"

"You know, sometimes a lady may want to talk to a man without any connotations," Rumpelstiltskin said very quietly, picking the seed from the lemon wedge he'd removed from his glass earlier.

Then a meaty hand grasped the front of his sweater and yanked him out the booth. The very tip of his toes barely touched the floor because of Keith's height advantage.

"I don't care how good you think you are, old man, but I can break you in half right now and not one person in this town would blink an eye!"

"You ass! Put him down!" Ruby demanded, getting to her feet. Maybe not one person in town would blink, but there were plenty of eyes on them in the bar.

Suddenly a hand larger than even Keith's locked down on his shoulder and gave him an unfriendly squeeze. A deep, booming voice rumbled lowly, "Mr. Noddingham. Would this be a bad time to ask about your loan?"

That odd choice of words seemed to be magic. Keith's face turned white and his grip went slack. Rumpelstiltskin nearly sat on the table when he was released, and got a good look at his rescuer. A tall man, six and a half feet tall at the very least, with a bald head and broad features. He wore a dark suit and looked very much like Death. At least he did to Rumpelstiltskin.

Keith made a great show of patting down his pockets as he turned, a tense grin plastered on his face.

"I-I left the envelope at my apartment, I must've! I'll go get it right now!"

"No need. Ms. French has just repossessed your car in the parkin-"

"She did what?!" Keith yelped, darting out like the building was on fire.

Ruby burst out laughing, as did a number of patrons. Apparently the vengeance of Ms. French was, on rare occasions, deserved. And appreciated. Gold swallowed thickly, looking up (and up) at the tall man.

"Th-th-thank you," he said at length, hating his quaking voice. He didn't know this man but he was very, very grateful to him.

"Omigod, _omigod!_ The look on his face! I wish I had a camera!" Ruby giggled, flopping down in her seat clutching her middle.

The giant's mouth quirked up in the slightest smile, and he nodded his head politely before striding back out the door. One could only hope that Keith Noddingham had left the parking lot. Rumpelstiltskin found his way to sitting back down, still shaken from the encounter. At least until Ruby lightly pinched his forearm resting on the table.

"Hey, thanks for sticking up for me, but I have Keith's number," Ruby smiled. A real smile, without the teeth. "Just so you know, big words make him angry. Sorta like a caveman confronted with a cash register. He just wants to smash things smarter than him."

Unsurprisingly, talk of smashing did not make him feel better. Then an absurd thought hit him: "What did he think I said?"

"I dunno," the leggy brunette shrugged. "Maybe he thought it was a sex act."

Rumpelstiltskin snorted, even as his face heated.

"I mean," Ruby's grin came back. "You don't look too bad, but you're not my exactly my type, Goldie."

Well now he was definitely blushing. "Uh...'k-'kay...?"

A delighted laugh bubbled out as Ruby stood up, swatting his arm. "Nice talking to you Mr. Gold, have a nice night."

Oh thank _god_. "Thanks Red," he replied without thinking, trying to turn his attention to his drink.

"'Scuze me?"

"Huh?"

"What did you call me? Red?"

The look on her face was one of confusion. And Rumpelstiltskin was left sitting there staring at her with what he could only hope wasn't blind panic. "Uh...Red," he repeated slowly, then flicked his hand to indicate her dress. Or that strapless red scrap of one. "You...really wear a lot of... _y'know_. I-I'm sorry, it just sort of popped out, won't happen again."

Ruby paused for a second longer, a blank look on her face. Then it cleared and she smirked, shaking her head. "I've heard much worse, believe me. See you around Gold, let me know if you wanna hang out again."

There was a salacious little wink punctuating that sentence, which made Rumpelstiltskin wonder if she was serious or not, since she just said he wasn't her type. Oh dear...

* * *

Keith Noddingham was firmly near the bottom of Lacey's least favorite town citizens. He was drunk, had tried to get her drunk and on her back in high school, and there were enough assault charges against him to put a girl off believing in the criminal justice system for the rest of her life. Unfortunately, at least for Keith, money was king. Or queen.

She took great pleasure in calling in a favor from Billy the mechanic to tow Keith's Camaro tonight from the Rabbit Hole parking lot. She stood in the shadows in her black woolen coat while Keith dashed out and bolted down the street after his car. Oh yes, that made her night. Dove would track him down and shake out the $300 dollars he owed her this month. As for Lacey, she was in the mood for a stiff drink and didn't feel like driving hime to get it.

The Rabbit Hole was sticky and smoky and, well, gross, but it was also right there. One shot of something Scottish and strong, and she'd head back to the empty pink Queen Anne on the edge of town.

She nodded to Dove as he came out. He rumbled, "Miss French" as he passed, striding into the night after Keith. Dove was her muscle, the brick wall of force she strategically employed to squeeze her due out of clients and tenants. He was a stoic, capable man. He'd handle Keith just fine.

Now: Drink.

Lacey walked in and got exactly three steps inside before her eyes fell on flash of red and black. Ruby Lucas was sitting a booth near the back. Which was odd because usually Miss Lucas was strutting front and center surrounded by a throng of suitors. Oh, wait. She had somebody in the booth across from her with her hand on their arm.

Gold.

What the-Lacey didn't believe her eyes for a long minute, but then Gold was blushing like a schoolgirl and Ruby was grinning and the most alien feeling rose up in Lacey's chest. What was that? It wasn't rage...no...oh god, was that jealousy? No. Why ever would _she_ be jealous? She should be glad Gold was starting to get a social life. Maybe if he got laid, he'd stop flinching and jumping at every creak in the floorboards.

And so what if it was Ruby Lucas to do the laying? If any girl was going to jump Gold, why not Storybrooke's party girl. It made sense. Gold wasn't an unattractive man, really. His nose was unique and the wisps of gray at his temples were appealing beneath his shaggy brown hair. He had soft, sweet brown eyes...and Lacey was far too sober to be this girl tonight.

So, she turned around and did not stop until she was reaching into her liquor cabinet for a fine bottle of Kentucky bourbon.

She wasn't in the mood for anything Scottish anymore.

* * *

Rumpelstiltskin dug out the notebook and poured over the facts he'd recorded in that first month and some. Noddingham. Noddingham. Where had he heard that before? Red...and Granny...Belle...wait. Red and Granny. He'd seen something...

Rumpelstiltskin hurried down the stairs and limped for the book he'd thumbed through the other day. His habit of reading on his downtime hadn't changed even as he doubted his sanity. And this book was some sort of odd, familiar stories, but more like told through many second-hand encounters.

_There._

The story about a girl in a red cape, a wolf, a basket of goodies, and a grandmother. Little Red Riding Hood. Only the wolf was, er, _a wolf_ , not Red as a werewolf. But the core elements were the same. He found his own name, spelled with a Z where there should have been an S, and he had never spun gold in his life, but the bit about the miller's daughter remained. Flipping on, he found reference to...an evil queen. And Snow White and Prince Charming...

The Enchanted Forest was a world of fairy tale characters.

That meant he hadn't imagined the mayor's visit to the shop demanding Ms. French do something about "a curse", and he, Rumpelstiltskin, and the Evil Queen were the only ones who remembered the Enchanted Forest. That he had mended Red Riding Hood's cape and bartered a deal for the Dark One Belle for a basket of tea cakes, and now Red was Ruby and Belle was Lacey French and neither acted quite right because of the curse messing with their memories.

Or, alternatively, he was stark raving mad and had created an entire false history in his broken mind to explain that his son wasn't dead, just missing, because he'd vanished in the Enchanted Forest after he'd bound himself as a servant to an evil sorceress. A parody of how he, Gold, took a loan from Ms. French to pay for Bailey Gold's cancer treatments...but failed in the end.

He didn't remember having a life in this land. (World?) But no one else in town acted like it was unusual. And it wasn't like he could ask anyone! Somebody would lock him up in a rubber room if he went up to them and said, "I think we live in a town of fairy tale characters, only we weren't fairy tale characters, it was all real. At least I think it was. I don't know anymore. What do you think?"

He didn't know what to think.

Well...

Just...

**_Shit._ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter: Valentine's candy, wistful thinking, and a little bit of madness...


	8. VIII. Chocolate and Headaches

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When we last left off, Lacey was NOT jealous of Ruby, and Gold was left unsure of which world was the real one...

Gold was a strange man, Lacey decided.

Not for reading. Not for shying away from socializing or only going out afterhours. She wasn't sure if he'd nailed Ruby Lucas or not, not that she cared, but Gold didn't associate with her more than anyone else in town. Which is to say...not at all. Unusual, as most of Ruby's...dates? Conquests? Most of _them_ wanted another go-round.

Not that she cared, mind you...

What made Gold so strange, lately, was that he was always flipping through a book and writing down notes. He carried a notebook in his pocket with him, because she'd seen him add something to it at Granny's once. Once, she asked him about it, and he blushed lightly and said, "I, uh, I'm trying to get my thoughts in order. Nothing interesting, really, ma'am."

Lacey was inclined to agree. It was probably some therapeutic nonsense Dr. Hopper prescribed. As long as Gold wasn't starving or, say, stabbing pens in his chest or muttering while he rocked back in forth in a corner, then Lacey could live with a few scribbles in a notebook.

By the time February rolled around, and stupid fake hearts decorated every other shop window and there was an obnoxious chocolate candy display front and center in the drugstore, she'd rather gotten used to it. She did not decorate for Valentines Day because she had no one to love or be loved by, (which was how she liked it, thank you,) and the commercialization of a holiday dedicated to love was disgusting. Not that it stopped her from buying a box of cherry cordials and eating them at home, but still, to the residents of Storybrooke, Lacey French was a cold-hearted bitch who hated the holiday.

Which never stopped any man from crawling to her for a bit of jewelry he couldn't afford to buy at Smileys Jewelers. Apparently they feared her less than they feared disappointing their sweethearts. Doctor Whale even showed up to pawn an antique brass watch for a bit of pocket money. So the most hated citizen got some of her best business days during the first half of February, and this year was no different.

At least, not until she went out to Brewster's Grocery to buy a half-gallon of milk.

There was a display of candy up front, and Mrs. Brewster's selection was slightly smaller than the tacky red-heart Valentine boxes in the drugstore, but far tastier. Lacey was considering buying a box of Whitman's Samplers from across the store when suddenly Gold was in front of the display of yellow and green boxes. Something ugly squirmed in Lacey's chest. More than likely he was buying candy for a sweetheart, and something spiteful caused her to strut over. She knew Gold was a little terrified of her, as was everyone, but she totally wasn't trying to scare him away from the chocolates.

_Totally..._

"Didn't know you had a sweet tooth," she hummed, trying to sound disinterested.

Gold turned to look at her with those brown eyes of his. His eyelashes were long for a man. That was a random observation, but still true. A shy sort-of-smile tugged at the corner of his mouth and he shrugged.

"Never really thought about it," he said, shifting his weight around like he did when he was feeling unsure. "Are they any good?"

"I prefer cherry cordials myself," she bit her lip, wondering if she should be as bitchy as she planned. "But...I do rather like the coconut ones. And the toffee bits are nice."

Gold's brow knit like he didn't quite understand her language for a moment, but then he smiled a bit. "I didn't think _you_ had a sweet tooth either, Miss French."

Lacey French did not blush. Which was good, since she definitely did not blush like a schoolgirl now. There was no reason to, after all.

"Diamonds are intrinsically worthless. Chocolate is a girl's real best friend," she waved her hand carelessly. "Plus, Sparrow Flowers has cheap roses. Waste of money, really."

Gold nodded for a moment, and then faltered and his eyes widened. "I-I'm just looking at-They aren't, I mean, I'm not courting anyone. They aren't for anyone. Well maybe _for me_ , but-"

Lacey did not blush, but her face did feel a bit warm.

"Ah...well...um...that hardly matters, I mean, good chocolate is good chocolate, right?" Dear god. "I have to get home so I'll just leave you to it."

Spinning on the toe of her stiletto, Lacey trotted up to the counter and was thankful that her owning this building had Mrs. Brewster ring up her half-dozen items so quickly. She was walking away from the counter just as she felt Gold limp up behind her. And she absolutely did not look over her shoulder to see if Gold had actually bought the damn candy or not.

When she got home and picked through her leftover cordials with a glass of bourbon on the side table, Lacey couldn't help but wonder over what Gold said. _'I'm not courting anyone.'_ It was laughably old-fashioned but sort of sweet, too. She imagined "courting" Gold would be slow and shy and...yes, sweet. He'd probably be afraid to kiss on the first date, let alone try to do anything else to a lady. Would he bring flowers or a box of candy like she'd teasingly advised? Why the hell was she thinking about it?

It didn't matter.

And it didn't even matter that he wasn't dating/banging Ruby Lucas, either, nope, Lacey reminded herself, biting into a chocolate...

Crap.

She set the candy aside and knocked back her bourbon. Her thoughts were too damn maudlin this time of year to begin with, she had no reason to even think about her pathetic caretaker.

Time to get positively sloshed.

* * *

Rumpelstiltskin had never had the option of a sweet tooth before. Once or twice in a year, maybe, he could get a sweet roll or perhaps a bit of peppermint and had enjoyed sharing that with Bae. He'd equated sweets with stickiness, since both treats left a residue on his hands that had to be licked off. These _chocolates_ Ms. French spoke so highly of were very sweet but not too sticky unless the filling spilled out.

And there was a lot of fillings in this Whitman's Sampler box. There was a little card inside that named each sweet, and the molasses chew one was very chewy, but also very tasty. There were a couple of those cherry things that Ms. French also liked, which were apparently liquified cherries in a chocolate shell. How did they get the cherries to melt?

While picking his way through the top layer of candies, Rumpelstiltskin sat with the notebook in front of him. He honestly wasn't sure which reality, this or the Enchanted Forest, was real. It was easier to believe this one was, if only because it was where he lived now. But his memories of "the old world" were clearer, more detailed. And yet the Enchanted Forest was a land populated with fairytale characters. That couldn't be possible...could it?

The little chocolate-covered candy be chose that time was surprisingly hard compared to the other soft, creamy pieces. The card said it was a "toffee". It was sweet and salty and crunching on it was a suitable distraction. His brain felt like mush and if he continued to think about what he'd written and seen, he would go absolutely mad.

If he wasn't already.

It was about halfway through February. His calendar proclaimed it the fifteenth and the past few days had an increase of traffic at the shop. Mostly men, mostly buying the jewels and shiny baubles. Ms. French had come from the back to help with the influx of men that had items they wanted to "pawn". Apparently, (and he'd looked it up in the handy set of encyclopedias he'd found upstairs to be sure,) there were three options in this sort of shop as far as the non-book purchases went. Ms. French could sell items, she could buy them, and she could sort of loan money against the resale value of an item. A fair-haired man with blue eyes that had ogled the long legs of a pretty young woman before approaching the counter had pawned a shiny watch, but not before unsuccessfully trying to flirt for a higher loan.

The extra activity kept Rumpelstiltskin from getting lost between the pages of any books lately, or from coming up with more proof of a conspiracy. Or his madness. Crap.

Twisting the handle on the kitchen pump (a "faucet", and wasn't indoor plumbing a marvelous invention in this land?) to pour himself a drink of water, he stood for a minute pondering a new angle. He couldn't talk to anyone out of fear they thought him mad. But he recalled a sort-of-conversation he'd had Miss Blanchard when she bought her arts-and-crafts magazine.

She said she was about to engage in her favorite part of Valentines Day, organizing a card-exchange among her students. He hadn't realized Miss Blanchard was a schoolteacher. She seemed rather young in his opinion, not that it mattered, but he found himself asking all the same, "How long have you been a teacher?"

Schooling in this world seemed to be mandatory, for children between the ages of about five or six up to eighteen. There were no "colleges" around town that he'd seen, but that accounted for another four years at least, more for certain fields if he'd read that entry in the Encyclopedia properly. Medicine, science, teaching. Miss Blanchard only looked to be in her mid- to late-twenties, she couldn't possibly have been teaching long, he thought.

Her hazel eyes glazed over as she thought about it, her pale face going blank. "I...I'm not sure. A while. But Valentines Day is my favorite time to teach because the children are all so selfless about it. Almost every child gets one card from a friend, it's so sweet."

She faltered at his question, but pushed right through it like it wasn't important.

And that was odd.

Rumpelstiltskin had tested his theory with Mrs. Brewster and a kindly redheaded man named Archie Hopper at the diner. Mrs. Brewster couldn't answer how long the shop had been opened, only that she and her husband had opened it when they were first married and he passed when Chip was a baby.

And equally perplexing, Archie couldn't say how long he'd been the town "psychiatrist", whatever that was, only that he'd gotten Pongo after he arrived, when his neighbor had a heart attack and passed suddenly. (He didn't know how long ago that was either.)

None of the grave stones had dates on them. Except for very old ones of people who died in the 1960s or earlier. He didn't even know when Bailey Gold had died, only that he had.

Or had he?

Draining his glass in another long gulp, Rumpelstiltskin pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes until colors sparkled behind the lids. He would sleep on it. Otherwise (assuming he was sane,) he would go mad.

* * *

His name was Jefferson.

His name was Jefferson.

He was a hatter and sold mushrooms.

He was a designer...

He had a daughter.

He had no one...

No, he had Grace.

No, there was no one. He was twenty-nine and alone-

No, he had Grace, his 10-year-old daughter.

No, he lived alone without so much as a dog to keep him company.

No, once he'd had a beautiful wife, Priscilla, but she'd died and he'd retired to care for Grace eight years ago-

No, eight years ago he'd struck it big in the fashion world and continued to rake in royalties as an eccentric designer-

No he was only slightly less poor than dirt-

No he lived in a mansion-

No.

No!

That wasn't right! His name was Jefferson!

His name was Jefferson, he was a hatter, he had sold mushrooms on the side and he was a widower with a beautiful little girl and he...he...

His name was Jefferson. He was wealthy, had a small fortune from his fashion designer profession, but was reclusive and alone in his empty house...

NO!

His vision blurred and a splitting migraine headache felt more like an axe had struck him between the eyes, sending him crumpling to his knees as a war clashed inside his aching skull.

The Evil Queen abandoned him in Wonderland, (gods he hated Wonderland,) and the Queen of Hearts ordered him to make a new portal-jumping hat. Only he couldn't, none of them were quite right. His first hat had almost been an accident, and he couldn't figure out how to remake the accident. Yes, yes, that was alllllllright.

Clawing the scarf from his neck, his fingertips traced frantically over the rough, uneven scar tissue smiling across his throat. It was true.

It was the truth.

_The truth..._

The scar came from a barfight when he'd been an idiot in college. Someone called him a word that started with F and rhymed with "maggot" because he liked to sew and design clothes. It just added another layer of eccentricity to his character because he wore cravats all the t-

**_NO!!!_ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter IX: A calendar year has passed and Gold finds an ally in an alley.


	9. IX. The Mad Hatter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When we last left off, Rumpelstiltskin came to an impasse in his studies and someone else awoke in Storybrooke...

Jefferson, his name was Jefferson, and that much he remembered.

That much he could trust.

There were days when he was certain he was Jefferson, formerly a hatter and portal jumper (and part-time thief...) turned father. Then days would go by when he forgot all that completely and was there was only Jefferson, the eccentric fashion designer living in the woods in a giant mansion. Lately, everything was gelling into a slightly confusing state of duality where confused!Jefferson couldn't tell which one it was, but instinctively knew one was right and one was a lie.

When he crossed paths with Mayor Mills, the woman had smirked with blood-red lips and made a snide comment about Paige Grace winning her school's spelling bee and showed him a newspaper with the girl's photo spread across the front page.

For nearly a week Jefferson nearly ran around in circles trying to find where Grace lived. That was Grace, he was sure of it, his little Gracie, his daughter!

Only when he saw Mr. and Mrs. Grace...he paused.

They were the neighbors.

Not his neighbors, _exactly_ , he didn't really have neighbors exactly, although he had a great view of town from his windows. But they were his old neighbors. He'd left Grace with them...because...well there was a good reason, he couldn't recall it at the moment, but there was a good reason! And he'd told Grace he'd come back for her...only...he couldn't-So what happened? Why did they think she was their daughter? She was his daughter! Grace! Not Paige!

There were a lot of people he was recognizing, in passing. The doctor, the old handyman...and Belle.

Belle was here.

She wore a miniskirt and tall heels under a warm woolen coat, her auburn hair was pinned back...and she had color to her skin. A warm sort of ivory color, and plump pink lips and black liner and sparkly eyeshadow drawing attention to her shiny blue eyes. Jefferson knew her as bloodlessly pale in ornate, patchwork dresses and bare feet, but that was definitely Belle. Only Belle could be so small and radiate such power that a man in a mechanics uniform nearly ran across the street to avoid her.

Jefferson turned and ran after the Dark One; If anyone knew what was going on, it would be Belle.

Only when he said, "Belle, Belle, I need to talk to you. What's going on? Where am I?" she looked at him like he'd asked why the sky was blue.

"Uh," she blinked. "In reverse order; Storybrooke Maine, I'm going to work, and I'm not Belle. Bye."

She started to click away in her heels and Jefferson, with easy long strides that matched her quick, short ones, kept pace with her. Not Belle? Of course she was Belle! It may have been a more common name but there couldn't be two short women with those blue eyes and that sort of presence, could there?

"Is this one of your jokes?" he asked. Jefferson would admit his memories were spotty, but he quite sharply recalled the Dark One playing word-games and messing with him in their acquantaince. "I'm serious Belle, tell me what's going on. Why can't I remember everything?"

Belle started walking faster, not looking at him directly though she was giving him a sort of side-eye.

"You know farther up the street is Doctor Hopper's office, you might try asking him?"

Jefferson paused a minute, letting Belle get ahead of him. Who was Doctor Hopper? The only doctor Belle had ever introduced him to was Dr. Frankenstein. Risking falling into his second set of memories, Jefferson skimmed over his other persona and found a tall, redheaded man with glasses and a dog who-

A shrink?

"I don't need a doctor Belle!" he snapped, in hindsight, a little too crazed to be believable. He dashed up the street but Belle was already darting inside and the door slammed shut behind her. "Belle!"

Jefferson pounced on the door and rattled the locked knob, noticing the blinds shut behind the door's window.

"Belle? Belle, open up! I need to talk to you, this is serious! Belle!"

After nearly a full minute of yanking on the dead-bolted door, Jefferson had two thoughts cross his mind at once: The first being to try and find a back door, the second, more sensible thought, being to take a step back and regroup. Regrouping had the added benefit of retreating from the two or three people on the street undoubtedly wondering what madness possessed a man to practically throw himself at Ms. French's door.

_Who was Ms. French?_

The owner of Storybrooke, holding the deed to at least 70% of the town at this juncture, not to mention the local monster rumored to throw orphans and widows on the street and drink human blood.

Those were the more colorful stories.

Even if they had been about the Dark One they weren't true.

_Who was the Dark One?_

Jefferson groaned, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes until he saw spots as two different realities battled inside his head like head-butting rams. And just as painful. He had taken a dark Lincoln he didn't remember knowing how to operate into town, and reversed the process to go back to his massive mansion on the wooded hill. There, he flopped on the elegant sofa and covered his eyes with his hands as the ache in his skull took full effect and he ricocheted back into Storybrooke!Jefferson with a migraine headache...

* * *

Not more than a week after "Valentines Day," and Rumpelstiltskin had packed up his notebooks and conspiracy theories for the time being. He was starting to question himself constantly and became afraid he was slipping into a fantasy of insanity the more he thought about this "curse".

There was one very clear memory from his youth, imagined or not, that made him decide to give up.

Charlotte and Arachne had lived in what would later become his home on the outskirts of the village. As he grew and years ticked by, more houses were built around them, still very much on the fringes of their society, but not as isolated as it had been. But back when he was still a relatively new kid and rather small for seven, two other boys had teased him for doing "women's work", and dared him to prove he wasn't a wimp. They dared him to go up to Old Tavish's cottage on the other outskirts of the village, east near the forest, and peek through the windows. Tavish must've seen the three boys approaching because they were just edging from behind a bush to sneak up to the cottage when the door slammed open and Tavish ran out with an axe screaming at them to get off his property.

Rumpelstiltskin didn't stop running until he nearly bowled over Arachne at their door.

When she got the story out of him, throwing in a mild scold for letting those boys bully him into a dare, Arachne sat him on a stool with a crust of bread for a snack and explained Tavish's situation: His first home had burned down, and his wife and children died inside. The man was left all alone to build a new house for himself, and as the house got built, poor Tavish went a little more mad with each passing day until he never came into town anymore except at night when he snuck around and stole things, though the latter part was never proven until his death when people came from all over to gawk at all the junk crammed into Tavish's little cottage right up to the rafters.

"You feed the madness, and it feeds on you," Arachne warned, petting a lock of hair off his forehead. "Poor Tavish couldn't face his grief and doesn't know he's trying to fill a whole in his heart. You have to learn to come to terms with the truth Rumple, even when it's unpleasant, you'll always be better for it."

So, with a resolve to not feed the madness, Rumpelstiltskin took a break from theorizing.

And it worked rather well for a few months. Rumpelstiltskin still avoided the Mayor and her Sheriff, and her only other loyal toady was Sidney Glass, the editor of The Mirror, but many people tried to stay out of the Mayor's way. There was also a modicum of protection as Ms. French's employee, which meant some people avoided him like he carried the plague, but that suited him fine. He supposed he would never be a very social person but he could talk to Ruby Lucas, and Archie Hopper, and one or two other people when he wasn't behind the counter of Old World Books and Antiques.

The greatest shock so far was finding the Blue Fairy during the Miner's Day Festival. Apparently Storybrooke had a mine...of some sort...at some time. He didn't care to find out, really. The Blue Fairy was bustling around handing out flyers for a church of some description, and in this world, she was called Mother Superior. It was hard to keep a straight face over that name; Especially with Belle's many comments about Rheul Gorm's superiority complex running through his head.

Mother Superior was the head of a convent of nuns. Ms. French owned their building and they had to pay rent, which probably explained why Mother Superior looked at him like he was a dead rat. Some people did that sometimes.

The only _nice_ nun Rumpelstiltskin had met was a slender girl with wispy brown hair and delicate features at the candle booth. (The nuns sold candles, why not?) She introduced herself cheerfully as Sister Astrid, and would he like to buy a candle to support the Sisters of Saint Meissa? They were fat, cylindrical candles, a creamy white with a pleasant vanilla scent, so Rumpelstiltskin had bought two.

Sister Astrid bounced up and down on the balls off her feet with a grin as bright as one of her candles. "Thank you for your contribution!" she chirped.

As someone who had to sit on the opposite side of the counter in a market once upon a time, and considering the amount of candles left, Rumpelstiltskin smiled back and couldn't begrudge the girl her joy.

But then October came around.

Mary-Margaret Blanchard came in every month to buy an arts and crafts magazine to research projects for her fourth grade class. She was also cheerful enough to tell him a little about the class. Rumpelstiltskin suspected the young woman of being very lonely. She was kind and gentle and it was a wonder she wasn't one of the nuns because her neckline never dipped below her collarbones, and she blushed like mad if anyone saw her so much as look as one of the tawdry romance novels on display.

And today, as he rang up her purchases, was no different: Miss Blanchard talking about her class and how they were going to pick pumpkins at Peterson Farms outside of town this Friday for Halloween. Then she said something odd.

"They have a little petting zoo up there, you know? We usually visit that after the pumpkin patch but I'll have to keep and eye on Paige Grace, she'll want to slip away and visit the bunnies first."

Rumpelstiltskin paused, but went through with the transaction and wished her a good day.

Hadn't Miss Blanchard said that last year, when he was first working at the shop? Yes. She did. She said that exactly. Even the little girl's name was the same.

Now that he was alert, things began to feel eeriely familiar to the first days he woke up in Storybrooke. The Flynns didn't reapper and the Queen hadn't burst into the shop demanding answers for anything. But Ruby went out with the same young man as he first saw her with, with the same jacket wrapped around her and only slight differences in their clothes. Mrs. Brewster's son was stuck on the same math problem he was all of last year. The children were all in the same grade as they were last year, actually...

He'd noticed the day-to-day routines of everyone, but a yearly pattern that never changed?

That was what the Queen had been complaining of, hadn't she?

_Oh..._

The afternoon of this revelation, something did change: Ms. French ran in and tried to slam the door shut behind her, only for a tall, dark-haired man with blue eyes and a cravat to squeeze in all the same.

"Go away you whack-job!" Ms. French snapped.

"Belle! I need to talk to you, to somebody! I feel like I'm going mad!"

"Probably because you _are_ , you bloody nutter! My name is Lacey French, not Belle, and if you don't leave my shop right now I will call Sheriff Graham so help me God!"

"Would you calm down? I just-"

_" **OUT!"**_

Apparently the man wasn't completely mad because he stopped cold, held up his hands, and with a look of misery he trudged back out the door again. Ms. French slammed it shut and groaned, rubbing her temples as she headed back for her office.

"That man gets crazier every time I see him, I swear. I don't know what he gets up to in his mansion but clearly it's something that's scrambled his brains."

Rumpelstiltskin nodded, but didn't quite hear her. "May I step out for a moment, ma'am? There's an errand I need to take care of quickly."

"Sure, sure, it's not like we're busy at the moment."

And so he hurried outside as fast as he could with a cane, his dark gray button-down flimsy protection against the cold November wind but he didn't want to stop for a coat.

**There.**

There he was, shuffling down the street like a beaten man.

Rumpelstiltskin hurried to catch up to him, and as soon as he was within ten feet he called out, "Excuse me? Sir? Sir, may I ask you something?"

Rumpelstiltskin couldn't recall the last time he initiated a conversation. But desperation made him...desperate, for answers.

The man turned around, one brow raised as his blue eyes fell on the former spinner.

"Can I help you?"

Rumpelstiltskin paused. There was one terrible moment when he wanted to turn around and go back to the shop. Maybe he was imagining things. Maybe he had something wrong wih him, instead of the town being wrong?

"My name is Rumpelstiltskin and I work for the Dark One."

* * *

Both sets of memories told him that dragging a stranger down an alley could easily be construed as a sign of bad things like kidnapping and murder, but Jefferson didn't much care as he pulled the smaller man, in fact, down an alley. It was easy because Jefferson was larger, had the element of surprise, and the man had a bum ankle, and took only a moment to make sure the man was stable on his feet before grabbing Rumpelstiltskin by the shoulders.

It was worth it: By his calculations it was nearly a year since he woke in Storybrooke, October of 1983 to October of 1984. Jefferson was still battling with the conflicting realities in his head, but there were longer periods of time when he was aware of both. Someday he might be able to maintain that state of mind full-time instead of falling back into just the confused hatter, or the brooding hermit. Today was not that day, though, but it was the day that he had a little more hope:

"You know the Dark One? You work for the Dark One? How? What did you do?"

Jefferson would later realize he was acting quite manic about the whole encounter, but at the same time, he did have a good reason. Thankfully the man-with long sandy hair brushing his collar, dark brown eyes, and an equal amount of cheerful and fretful creases in his angular face-seemed more bewildered at being believed than Jefferson's eccentricities.

"I, uh, I was her caretaker, now I'm her shopkeeper-"

"Caretaker? You lived with Belle?" That seemed only a little unlikely to Jefferson because as long as he knew Belle, she just wanted to be left alone with her books in that big empty castle. Odd.

As was the bit of color rising in the man's thin cheeks. "Well, under the same roof-"

"She didn't make you sleep in a dungeon? Huh. Wait! You remember? You remember everything? The Enchanted Forest, the Dark One...the Queen?"

"Queen Regina?"

Jefferson grinned widely, a hysterical little giggle breaking from his throat. He yanked Rumpelstiltskin into a crushing hug and might've kissed the top of the man's head, he couldn't quite recall much more than the bubbly euphoria that came with realizing he wasn't mad. At least not entirely...but still!

"Thank you, thank you, thank you!" he cackled, pushing the man back by the shoulders. Rumpelstiltskin looked uncomfortable and Jefferson might feel embarassed later, but not right now. "Oh, oh _god_. Gods? Whatever, thank _whoever's_ in charge up there! _Ha!_ I thought I was imagining everything, they all look at me like I'm crazy! I mean I might be a little but I'm right! _Thank you_!"

"You're...welcome?" he ventured slowly, shifting his weight onto his left foot. "How...how long have you remembered?"

Jefferson thought about it for a moment. How long had he remembered? Time was hard to measure when he kept switching between two mindsets. Hmm...wait a minute.

"How long have you?"

Rumpelstiltskin shrugged. "I woke up on the first day. I...I wasn't sure if I was imagining things either, but...I mean if two of us remember, and the Queen remembers-"

The sensation of cold water trickled down Jefferson's spine.

"The Queen...knows?"

"Well, yes, she cast the curse, I think," he replied, fidgeting his hands. "Um, early on she came into the shop to complain about the curse to Belle. Ms. French, I mean. I don't think she knows I'm here, and I don't _want_ her to find me. The um, the last time we saw each other was through the grate in a prison cell. Me being the prisoner, of course."

That made sense.

But a new sense of paranoia went skittering over Jefferson's skin and began nervously scouting out the alley. In the old world, Regina had countless guards and spies. Not to mention a magic mirror spy. And a pet huntsman. Jefferson may have retired when Priscilla died, but he still knew how to keep an ear to the ground. The Sheriff was in her pocket (and bed,) and Glass was her bitch, but who else could there be?

Suddenly the alley didn't seem very private and Jefferson felt one of his migraine headaches creeping up fast. He focused on the man in front of him, Rumpelstiltskin...that couldn't be his name in this world, could it?

"I think...I think we should talk later, somewhere private," he rubbed the fashionable layer of stubble on his chin thoughtfully. "You remember everything, both sets of memories? How do you do that?"

"I...two sets?"

"Yeah, you know. Memories here, and the old memories."

The blank look on the man's sharp face fit his reply perfectly: "I don't have false memories. I mean, I somehow know things like...like what a mailbox is, but I don't really have a past life. Current life. Jus-just the one set of memories."

Oh the lucky bastard.

Fishing in his pocket for a pen, Jefferson swept his eyes over the man again. He was short, thin, with longer sandy brown hair and dark brown eyes with hints of gold, wearing a dark gray shirt and jeans and clean, worn shoes. He didn't look unusual. And he didn't look like a liar.

Jefferson pressed the pen into his hand. "What's your name in this world?"

"Ah, Gold. Mister Gold."

"Gold...hmm...okay Mr. Gold, we should talk later. But I'll contact you first. Somedays I don't remember who I am, so this is how it has to be. Gimme your phone number."

It took Rumpelstiltskin/Gold a moment to remember what his number was. Apparently he had never had cause to use the phone before. But he did somehow recall his number. He wrote it on a scrap of paper in his pocket and handed it to Jefferson with the pen. His handwriting was scratchy and slanted, but legible. The former hatter tucked both in his pockets and nodded, edging down the opposite end of the alley.

**"I'll be in touch Mr. Gold..."**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter X: Regina does some pondering, and Gold gets a phone call...
> 
> Jefferson is here! Ta-da!


	10. X. Catch Your Breath...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When we last left off, Jefferson the Mad Hatter introduced himself to Rumpelstiltskin...

_Jefferson._

Nothing about the name was familiar. No, wait, it was. Belle had mentioned a Jefferson once or twice. He'd been an eccentric gentleman-thief of sorts, if Rumpelstiltskin remembered correctly. A man with unique clothes, an odd personality, a fondness for tea that rivaled Belle's own, and a magic hat that opened portals between worlds. A magic hat...

Ugh.

Pondering the correlation of fairy tale characters to the residents of Storybooke was frustrating. Ruby was Red Riding Hood, Ms. French was Belle...though he wasn't sure what "fairytale character" Belle was.

Maleficent was famous for sleeping curses and dragon fire, so he knew that wasn't Belle's fairytale counterpart. And Mother Gothel didn't fit. Rumpelstiltskin had yet to find any other sorceress women that made the occassional deal/curse involving babies in the Grimm's fairytale book, or the Hans Christian Andersen volume. He was running through Aesop's Fables now, perhaps he could find something there. Those seemed to mostly be moral stories.

Belle was many things but morally correct wasn't usually one of them.

Hmm...wait? Hats and tea? That was familiar enough and Rumpelstiltskin put the fables back on the bookshelf and grabbed the Alice in Wonderland copy instead. It was in chapter...aha, yes, the Hatter. But Alice in Wonderland wasn't a fairy tale. It was written by Lewis Caroll something like a hundred years ago...  
Ugh.

Settling back behind the counter Rumpelstiltskin picked up the copy of Pride and Prejudice he'd been reading. It wasn't a fairytale, and perhaps that was why he enjoyed reading it at the moment.

He was only about sixteen chapters into the weighty tome, enough time to wish someone would put a gag on Mrs. Bennet, and to feel torn between wishing Mr. Darcy would just be nice to Elizabeth if he liked her or feeling sympathetic to the man in the face of her decidedly shrewish treatment when she hardly knew more than his name.

Hmm...

He supposed there was a bit of a Mr. Darcy in him. What was his first name anyway?

Okay, a definitely a bit of Darcy in him then...

* * *

It was amusing to Lacey to see Gold reading in his downtime at the shop. He would read anything he could get his hands on, she caught him reading fairytale books, children's literature, fiction, non-fiction, dry history books, and once or twice she thought he was actually reading an encyclopedia.

Not that she could ever throw stones for reading anything one could lay hands on, of course.

She watched Gold's brow crease at whichever part of the book he was at. On a whim, she asked, "What's so interesting?"

Gold marked his place on the page with a finger, then looked up at her.

"Pardon?"

Lacey mimed holding a book in front of her, wiggling her fingers over the "pages". "You look puzzled, what part of the book are you at?"

"Oh, oh," Gold nodded, shifting on his stool. He probably didn't notice his own fingers drumming on the page. Gold had the fiddliest fingers she'd ever seen. "Yes, ah, chapter sixteen of, um, Pride and Prejudice. I don't think I like Mr. Wickham very much."

Snickering, Lacey leaned on the edge of the counter across from him. "You are a better judge of character than Elizabeth is. So is that what's causing that little crease in your forehead?"

Gently poking a fingertip betwen his drawn brows, Lacey almost yanked her hand back when she touched warm, sun-kissed skin that unfurled underneath her finger, smoothing out in a peaceful expression. Feigning calm, Lacey traced her fingertip over to the farside of his right eyebrow instead, hoping she came off as collected and cool instead of nervous and sweaty as butterflies swarmed in her stomach.

Gold licked his thin lips, looking down at his hands on the paper.

"Um, n-no, m'l-No ma'am. I uh, it's how Elizabeth Bennet seems so willing to believe the worst in Darcy, from a man she's only just met. I don't...I don't understand that. Perhaps Mr. Darcy isn't a perfect gentleman, but the worst he's done to her so far is say she wasn't pretty enough for him to dance with. Though I suppose he's changed his tune now..."

Lacey smirked with a little shrug of her shoulders. "That's the reason for the title. Pride is Mr. Darcy, and yes he does change his tune a bit and that's why he's one of my favorite fictional men. Prejudice is Elizabeth, she makes these snap-judgements about people and sticks to them even as they start changing, but she changes a bit too, you'll see. What do you think of the other Bennets?"

"I think the youngest three are ninnies, and Jane is going to be happily married off to Mr. Bingley by the novel's end. Mr. Bennet is okay when he looks up from his paper and Mrs. Bennet should be hidden from polite company."

Lacey snorted into her palm, trying to quell a burst of giggles. "She is the worst, isn't she?"

"Abomindable. Why did she have to assure them the Bennets had a cook, repeatedly? Why on earth did she think it was a good idea to abandon Jane to the mercy of practical strangers when she was ill!"

"Because she's an idiot!"

"Well obviously!" Gold's brown eyes opened wide and his hands flared out dramatically.

Lacey had an attack of giggles again, hoping she didn't start tearing up. Her makeup would run and give her the appearance of a melting panda, and that would just be embarrassing at this point. Rubbing the corner of her eye with the heel of her palm, relieved when nothing smeared on her hand, she stepped back from the counter and couldn't quite wipe the smile off her face. Apparently Gold couldn't quite take the crooked little smirk off his mouth either, and Lacey could suddenly see why Ruby Lucas might be interested in Gold that one night.

Oh, _that_ wiped the smile off her face.

Clearing her throat, Lacey gave a smart nod, stepping back into her dim, dusty room in the back. "Well, you keep reading and see how it all turns out, then."

The smile bled out of Gold's expression, even those his lips didn't move. It was in his eyes, really. How that little light dimmed down to a memory. Well that was fine. She didn't need to give him any improper ideas...

Good lord, improper? Was this an Austen novel? No. If it were Austen, she would be the young vivacious lady and Gold her proud and wealthy opposite.

Imagining Gold in a suit was a stretch of her imagination itself.

Turning on her heel and vanishing into the back, Lacey sat back down at her desk, picking up the pen and opening her ledgers. It was all immaculate but suddenly Lacey needed something to occupy her mind.

And, she reached under the desk for a tumbler and bottle of Mr. Walker to occupy her hands...

* * *

Moving into December of the second year of the curse, 1984, Regina had developed a method: Ignore the daily and weekly recurrences, and try to seek out the little differences. Luckily, important events in the outside world of this land would filter into Storybrooke and color certain parts of their lives.

Flashdance, Top 40 hits, the Cold War. Then there were hundreds of little things the curse provided for the rest of Storybrooke that Regina had to learn. How to use a pay phone, television, interesting bits of history, must-see movies. Watching the Wizard of Oz was interesting and amusing, though the green-painted witch was annoying.

(If that had been Regina, she would've just ripped out Dorothy's heart and made her take off the shoes!)

Toto was cute though, and the music was incredible catchy. It was entirely her own business if Regina went through the next few days humming bits of _"Over The Rainbow"_ and _"If I Only Had A Brain"_ while she did paperwork in her office.

There was one particular movie style called an animated feature (a collection of hand-drawn images moving on the screen, somehow,) that was very interesting to Regina. The company was called Disney, or something, and the former Queen would never admit that she was rather charmed by their tale 101 Dalmatians. The dogs were sweet, and if you added Cruella being a positively batshit chain-smoking puppy-killer that might weigh ninety pounds in repressed mommy issues, then there was definitely a petty factor of enjoyment.

Sleeping Beauty was less engaging, although Merriweather was probably the only fairy Regina could identify with ever, but Maleficent was amusing. She got off much luckier than Cruella, although was curiously given green skin.

Why did people in this land associate green skin with evil magic?

A bit of casual research showed that the Disney company did have a version of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. Regina snickered at the childish-looking Snow character and was a bit smug that the picture she'd seen of the Evil Queen was a very glamorous lady. But that movie had never come on the TV, which was probably for the best because Regina had noticed that the villains of these Disney movies rarely survived the endings.

The movies were also laughably simplified moral tales with an overreliance on magic and love at first sight. For goodness sakes, no one actually woke someone from a sleeping curse without knowing them. Or only speaking to each other once. At least that little mermaid's sickening tale hadn't been rewritten, Regina might throw up from that mess.

Regina pondered, as she sat down to dinner alone, not in the mood to deal with Graham tonight, what sort of twisted tale they spun from Belle's Enchanted Forest persona. Ella, the spoiled little cinder-girl turned princess, had become a selfless, pure-hearted innocent in her movie. With talking mice. And a very scary cat.

It was a pattern the former Queen had noticed. The people of this land regarded all the important figures of the Enchanted Forest, and some beyond, as characters from childrens stories. From the Genie of Agrabah to that hack Little Bo Peep, everyone had a little bedtime story or rhyme that was almost universal to children everywhere.

How strange.

There was no equivalent of the Dark One, Regina was disappointed to see. If her own persona in the "wonderful world of Disney" had been killed off, Regina wanted to know what fair prince or princess killed the Dark One.

There were no stories, though, about a wicked little sorceress with a penchant for deals and newborns and piece-meal dresses. The only thing close was a tale called _Rumpelstiltzkin_ about an odd little imp that spun gold for a miller's daughter...

Which matched nothing about Belle's shivering runt of a caretaker, so Regina ignored it.

A year of victory was, despite the monotony, still rather pleasant. And since Belle, sorry, Miss French, honestly didn't know better than to interfere, Regina had started to feel more secure about her new position as mayor. Oh the day-to-day monotony (hadn't she already thought that?) was annoying at times, but there was a certain comfort in predictability. And there were so many people in town that Regina could devote many years to rooting out all of Storybrooke's secrets, just like she'd enjoyed doing in the Enchanted Forest.

However...

Occasionally, Regina would recall Belle mentioning...something about the curse. The details were fuzzy now, she'd been too impatient to listen to anything that didn't involve how to cast the damn thing. But there was talk about Snow and Charming, and...their baby. The baby that Regina couldn't find in their castle when she stormed in before the curse hit.

Come to think of it, while Regina suspected that "Marco" would be childless in this land, she hadn't seen his little redheaded puppet-boy around town...

But these thoughts that ruffled Regina's mental feathers almost immediately were smoothed away by the fact that if the Charming baby was not in Storybrooke, it couldn't break the curse either. No one ever left or came to Storybrooke. The town was entirely self-sufficent and what odd bits Regina couldn't justify like off-season produce and her own designer clothes were consigned to the curse maintaining itself.

Nobody left Storybrooke...and no strangers came to Storybrooke.

_'With the exception of little Owen Flynn...'_

Regina was reaching for her apple cider before that thought had even properly left her head, hoping someday the persistent feelings of hollowness and disappointment would fade in time.

* * *

Rumpelstiltskin first stumbled across Odds and Ends when he held the door for Miss Blanchard, who was struggling to keep it open with arms filled by bags. The schoolteacher offered a chirp of thanks and bustled on her way down the street, but he paused at the door.

The shop smelled like scented wax. (He'd later realize it was the scented candles Penelope Homer kept burning behind the counter, and had been doing for the past twenty years since her husband vanished overseas, according to town gossip.) It was also filled to the rafters with all manner of craft supplies. Glues and paints and brushes and papers and pencils and popsicle sticks and glitter and silk flowers and sewing kits and bolts of cloth and yarn. A rainbow of yarn.

There was no spinning wheel in his flat. And he'd run out of yarn finishing the gray mittens, and what was left was made into two colorful potholders. Reading took up a nice bit of Rumpelstiltskin's spare time, but he supposed another hobby couldn't hurt. Especially if it kept him from wondering if the tiny florist Lina Sparrow was Thumbelina or not...

Yes, time to take up knitting again.

The spinner in him was disappointed with the quality of the yarn. It was sturdy enough but also somewhat...unnatural, he thought, for it to be so strictly uniform. Some of it wasn't even real wool, something called...acrylic? His encyclopedias and dictionary said it was a manmade fiber of sorts and that thread and yarn was created with large machines in factories in this world. How disappointing.

Rumpelstiltskin ended up buying some golden yellow yarn and, in a fit of masochism, a skein of sky-blue that reminded him of Belle's eyes.

About a week after his first encounter with Jefferson, Rumpelstiltskin sat with a half-finished scarf made from blocks of the yellow and blue he'd stitch together later. The weather, again, was turning cold so he supposed it couldn't hurt. Odds and Ends sold patterns, perhaps he could make a sweater too? However, just as he was quite happily lost to the repetitive clicking of the needles--

**Brrrrriiinnng! Brrrrrriiinnng!**

"Aaahh!"

The bells inside the telephone device jangled again loudly, but this time Rumpelstiltskin was prepared. (Almost.) Whenever Ms. French answered the telephone in the shop, she said, _'Hello'_ and the other person spoke. He'd never actually answered the telephone himself, but it shouldn't be that difficult.

"Hello?" he asked slowly.

_"Gold? Gold, that is you, right?"_

"Jefferson?"

 _"Oh thank gods! I splashed some tea on my note with the number and it smudged. This was sort of a crapshot honestly but-Wait, wait. Okay."_ Jefferson took a deep breath. "I need to talk to you, I've got some ideas, but I need to meet you somewhere. Let's not talk about this over the phone. Meet me after dark tomorrow at Gully's."

"Okay...where is that?"

_"It's down by the docks, you can't miss it. See you then."_

Jefferson hung up before Rumpelstiltskin could form a proper reply. Good lord...

**What was he getting into?**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter XI: Jefferson and Rumpelstiltskin team up to scheme...
> 
> OK, so if you've got any prompts, go over to my Tumblr please? I need an idea or two to carry me over the next seventeen years or so...in fic, of course.


	11. XI. The Plan Is Set

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When we last left off, Rumpelstiltskin received a call from Jefferson, the Mad Hatter himself, and was called down to the docks for their investigation to begin...

As a rule, Rumpelstiltskin avoided the docks of Storybrooke. As a child he'd been frightened that he would be dragged off by pirates, or fall into the sea, or lose sight of his father in the crowds of the towns they passed through and be left behind. After Milah and Captain Hook, the sea and the docks of a port had a whole new set of negative connotations.

But...two people couldn't have the same delusions, could they? That meant Jefferson must've been on to something.

So to the docks it was.

With a small kitchen knife tucked into his pocket.

He probably couldn't stab anyone, really, but maybe it would look intimidating? While he...held his cane in the other...hand...

Or maybe the attacker would take pity on him. That was more likely. And of course, in addition to it being dark, it was also a little foggy. All the better to inspire a fear of the shadows and very air itself. _Yay_.

Gully's was on the more rundown side of the boardwalk, but it wasn't what Rumpelstiltskin was expecting. It was between a seafood restaurant that wasn't open tonight, and a liquor store that looked like even the roughtest of the Rabbit Hole's patrons would hesitate to enter in broad daylight. The little shop had peeling white siding, and a yellow sign across the front with red blocky writing that read: Gully's Tackle 'n' Bait. And boarded up windows with **CLOSED** painted over the boards.

Hmm...

Rumpelstiltskin tried the door, but it was locked. He went to walk away when there was a tap on an exposed part of window. When he leaned in, Rumpelstiltskin could barely make out the interior, it was so dark. Then there was a grinning yellowish face blocking his vision.

With a terrified yelp, Rumpelstiltskin stumbled back, his feet rolling from under him. When he scrambled back up, he realized it was...Jefferson. Just Jefferson. Standing behind the window. Oh. _Phew_.

"What the hell?" he scowled, and Jefferson-not the least bit repentant,-made a circle sort of motion with his finger and ducked out of sight. What did that mean? Circle? Spin? Round? A...oh, around. Around the building...had that maniac broken into the abandoned shop?

Limping around to the back door, Jefferson sprang out and grabbed him by the shoulders, hauling him inside so quickly for once Rumpelstiltskin forgot to be afraid.

Jefferson shut the door quietly and pulled him over to the dusty counter, flicking on a small electric lamp with a light too dim to light the shop, but bright enough that Rumpelstiltskin could see the sheets of paper lying on the countertop.

"Okay, so!" Jefferson sat down on a stool and twirled a pencil in his hands. "This is what I have so far, I recognize Belle of course. Then there's the doctor at Storybrooke Hospital-long story,-and the Queen. There's my daughter Grace, too, and the neighbors I left her with. And I think I recognize that mousy little school teacher as Snow White but she was younger then, I'm not certain..."

Rumpelstiltskin sat on the other stool with a bit of difficulty, listening to Jefferson ramble on until he got to his point.

"But the thing is, nobody has the same name they used to have. Grace thinks her first name is Paige and the neighbors are her parents, Belle thinks she's Lacey French, the teacher thinks she's Mary-Margaret Blanchard, and the doc-Well he is a doctor here, that's a little wierd, but-"

"What are you trying to say?" Rumpelstiltskin asked.

Jefferson paused, tapping the pencil against his nose thoughtfully.

"My point is that everyone who is here, was in the Enchanted Forest. And the Queen is the mayor of Storybrooke. Doctor Frankenstein is Doctor Whale. My daughter Grace is Paige Grace. I'm not sure why her surname is French, but you have to admit Belle always did where a lot of lace. Tell me you see those connections."

Rumpelstitlskin thought about it...and...gods help him but it did make sense.

"At Granny's Diner, Mrs. Lucas and Ruby. They're Red Riding Hood and Granny, from the fairytale. In this world, everyone has a character in a storybook."

Jefferson raised an eyebrow. "A storybook? Really? That-Oh, yeah, yeah, that's right. That's why you're Gold."

"Pardon?"

"Well, you know," Jefferson paused, then rolled his wrist. "You know! A little man? Guess my name? Rumpelstiltzkin? Spinning wheel? Makes gold out of straw...?"

"Dearie, if I could spin straw into gold I would not be a Frontlands peasant," Rumpelstiltskin deadpanned. "I said everyone _has_ a character, not that they _are_ a character. You're not even in a fairytale, you're from Alice in Wonderland."

Jefferson grew very stiff, leaning away from him suspiciously. "What about Wonderland?"

The former spinner shrugged. "There's a book in this world, um, well two actually, Lewis Carrol wrote a sequel, about a little girl named Alice and her travels through first Wonderland, and then Looking-Glass Land. I think Wonderland is based off of a deck of cards, and Looking-Glass Land is like a giant chessboard-"

Fidgeting his pencil, Jefferson unconsciouly doodled a heart and X'd it out on a corner of the paper.

"Believe me, Wonderland is not a game. It's insanity."

"Ah..." Rumpelstiltskin swallowed. "I, um, I think Belle called it a...multicolored hell?"

Jefferson snickered amd seemed to calm down, a little. "Yeah, yeah it is. So what am I in the book? A dashing rogue? A villainous scoundrel?"

Hmm...how to put this delicately?

"An ugly little man with a large hat and a tea addiction, who's friends with a hare and a dormouse. You also ask a riddle with no answer and got in trouble with the personification of Time."

It, understandably, took Jefferson a moment to digest that.

"Mmmm...yes to the hat, and tea addiction, I will admit. Me and the dormouse are on good terms. But let me tell you something about that damned March Hare; He is no friend of mine! He had a magic watch that controls time, he had me trapped at his table in a time loop until-" Jefferson stopped short. "Until...I-I wasn't. I retired after that. Took care of my little Gracie until her Royal Pain in the Ass tricked me into taking her to Wonderland. She abandoned me there with the Queen of Hearts."

Rumpelstiltskin sensed there was a story he was missing with the hare, but eyed Jefferson's scarf curiously.

On cue, Jefferson whipped it off and shined the light on his exposed throat. There was a thick, roughly stitched scar running around it, possibly all the way around his neck...

"Off with your head?" the spinner blurted, making a little chopping motion.

"Precisely. Lemme tell you something about Queen Cora; She's batshit. Not in a giggling maniacal way, more like a calculating snake. She had my head reattached and ordered me to make a new magic hat. She was banished to Wonderland by her daughter-guess who, yes, it's Regina,-and wanted out again. But you need a portal, so-"

"You had to make a portal-jumping hat from scratch," Rumpelstiltskin guessed. He remembered Jefferson's frequent mention of a daughter. "You were trying to get back to your Grace, weren't you?"

Jefferson went quiet again. He doodled something that looked very much like a rabbit's head on the paper.

"I went to Wonderland because Regina offered to pay me handsomely, enough that Grace would always be taken care of, for this one favor. I agreed to make the hat for Cora to get back home. I have to figure how to break this curse, because I stood there on the street and Grace walked by me and she didn't even notice me. She doesn't recognize me. The only thing that kept me from going after her was because I saw the mayor watching me across the street. She knows we're cursed Gold, _I know she knows_."

Rumpelstiltskin nodded. "She came into the shop, early on. I think she cast the curse. Belle may have written it but Regina cast it, I'm certain."

"And Belle doesn't remember anything?"

Snorting, the spinner twirled his cane between his palms. "If she did? She wouldn't want me working for her."

"I thought you were her caretaker?"

"I was, but then things got...complicated..."

"How complicated?" Jefferson asked, suspicious. "On a scale of one to you-kissed-her, how bad?"

Rumpelstitlskin felt himself flinch.

The pencil clattered to the desk from Jefferson's numb fingers.

" _You KISSED Belle?!_ Why? I mean she's a beautiful lady and she's got charm but...why?!"

"Now...she might have kissed me first-"

"That makes even less sense! Look, now you kissing Belle? Logically, she's beautiful and powerful and kinda irresistable. You? Look, Gold, my friend, you've got the face of a serial killer and the attitude of a kicked puppy."

Ouch.

"Well it hardly matters!" Rumpelstiltskin snapped. "She told me to leave, so I was going back home to my son when Queen Regina and her guards dragged me away to a tower. I'm not sure why but her father let me go...and by then my son was gone. I couldn't find him so I was going to ask Belle for help when this purple mist filled the realm and that was that. Next thing I know, we're all here in Storybrooke."

Jefferson hummed thoughtfully.

"So when you say kiss...was it a little peck or like, tongue and teeth?"

* * *

Lacey French spent her evenings at home, with little deviation, thusly...

She took off her coat and locked the door. She went to the kitchen and made something simple to eat because she was not the greatest cook in the world. After dinner was when the shoes came off for the first time all day. Then, in her private library and study, she turned the radio on, grabbed the book she was currently reading, and poured a tumbler of something to drink.

Usually bourbon or whiskey. Sometimes a scotch. Sometimes a rum and coke. Once in awhile she made a gin and tonic if she could pick up a lime from the grocery store, but mostly Lacey French was a bourbon or whiskey girl ordinarily.

When she grew tired of reading, something like eleven o'clock, usually, she turned off all the lights and radio and went upstairs with her heels in hand. Shower, pajamas, fall into bed and set the alarm for tomorrow.

_'And repeat...'_

Tonight, Lacey sat on her sofa with her legs tucked under her and a blanket around her shoulders, reading The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. (It was Halloween, why not?) For the life of her, Lacey couldn't remember where she got this blanket. It was too small to call an afghan, or really a blanket at all. It was a little bit too big to be a shawl, though. Usually, Lacey just wrapped herself up in it like this on chilly nights.

It didn't feel like a blanket made in a factory. It had that soft, homey feel of a handmade blanket. The color was unusual, too, a mottling of fibers that came out a sort of brassy-golden color. It was knit in a sort of lacy pattern and had fringe along the edges that Lacey would play with when she was deep in the plot of a mystery.

Granted at this stage there was no mystery in Sleepy Hollow...

One of the reasons Lacey loved this story so much was the conflicting characters of Ichabod Crane and Brom Bones. On the one hand, Ichabod was the protagonist vying for the lovely heiress Katrina Van Tassel's hand, a clever schoolteacher. And Brom was Ichabod's rival for Katrina's affection, a big and rough young man who's courtship had been compared to as advances made by a bear.

But if you looked closely: Ichabod was no noble hero. He was vain, cowardly, greedy, and as much in love with Katrina's inheritance as he was with her looks.

Lacey was never quite sure if Katrina had lead Ichabod on to make Brom jealous or was briefly interested in the schoolteacher, but Ichabod's sour disposition when he was dismissed struck her as less of a heartbroken suitor and more of a dissapointed schemer. There was a lesson in there.

Not that Brom Bones was an innocent; He did chuck a pumpkin and scare Ichabod straight out of the county and up to New York. But of the pair, Brom's feelings for Katrina were truly for her. And, as far as you knew, Brome _did not_ fantasize about the livestock of the Van Tassel farm as prepared for a dinner table...

Unexpectedly, as she skimmed over the description of the Van Tassels great front porch with the horse collars and butter churn and spinning wheel, Lacey thought of Gold.

Gold was, perhaps, conventionally cowardly. Timid, easily spooked, tongue-tied. He stammered a lot when they spoke, but he didn't exactly seem... _frightened_ , by her. He could look her in the eye, he could sometimes manage a clever joke, or say something that made her smile.

Granted he was on her payroll and she took his rent for the apartment above the shop out of his check and it could have all been an act...but it didn't feel like sucking up either.

He was an odd little man, Mr. Gold. Though not half so odd as that lunatic Jefferson...

* * *

It was established rather quickly that Regina's curse had a either a sense of irony or one of wicked humor. Her surname, for example, was Mills. Her mother was a miller's daughter.

("You would've taught her to spin gold in the fairytale," Jefferson supplied, which was not helpful in the least and now the former hatter knew that a Frontlands spinner had once been infatuated with the bloody Queen of Hearts....)

"I saw her Mayoral-Majesty at the dinner a few days ago," he added in passing. "She was talking to Mary-Margaret, well more like sneering. Something about an unfortunate coma patient in the hospital. I've noticed when Regina is feeling crabby she singles out Mary-Margaret. That's probably Snow White."

Rumpelstiltskin thought about it for a moment. "Does Snow White like birds? Because they are always building birdhouses in her class."

"I don't know. I mean in the movie she's always singing and has little birds flying around her-Hey, you know what we should do?"

"Um, what?"

Jefferson scribbled down question marks at the end of " **SNOW WHITE=MM Blanchard??** " and spread his hands wide.

"We need to write down names of people in town, and try to figure out who they are in the old world. Everybody's got a story, right? Well you work in the bookshop."

Oh.

Oh!

"Okay, but what are we going to do once we name everyone?" the former spinner asked. "No one will believe us. You saw how Ms. French acted when you, er, introduced yourself."

Jefferson had the good grace to look a little embarrassed by that. "Yeah... _yeah_...well, we should probably just take stock of who's here, for now at least. We've got a good start here and, not to blow my own horn, but I'm pretty knowledgeable about the Who's Who of the realms."

Rumpelstiltskin decided he didn't want to know how Jefferson knew so much and nodded agreeably.

It took nearly a year and then some, but at long last, Rumpelstiltskin had a plan. If they could figure out how the curse worked, then they could figure out how to break it. Belle once said that curses were made to be broken, by the smallest of things sometimes.

What could be the undoing of an entire cursed town?

* * *

The girl had soft, baby-fine blonde curls and hazel eyes. She toddled after the foster house matron, who was putting some toys the older toddlers were playing with, chubby hands clinging to a stuffed panda.

The woman in charge of the home noticed her little shadow dressed in a soft yellow romper and laughed, bending down to her level and making a silly face. The baby giggled, falling down on her bottom, still gripping her panda tightly as the woman booped her button nose.

**"Are you helping, Emma?"**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter XII: Gold and Lacey don't have a date, Rumpelstiltskin comes up short, and a new mind becomes curious...
> 
> If you have any prompts, do drop me a line on Tumblr? This is an open invitation until further notice guys, I don't mind!


	12. XII. Forgotten but not gone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When we last left off, Gold and Jefferson began a list of the townsfolk...

From a detached perspective, Rumpelstiltskin was rather impressed by how he pulled out the notes from his closet and the storybooks and started fact-checking the list at his kitchen table:

_**Ruby Lucas=Red Riding Hood (and the wolf??)** _

_**Mrs. Lucas=Granny** _

_**Regina Mills=Evil Queen** _

There were also two books Rumpelstiltskin had bought from downstairs, one with the meaning of last names, and a "baby name" book that had the meaning of first names. People rarely had family names in the Enchanted Forest but hear people had first, middle, and surnames. That was confusing before, but now it was coming in handy.

Blanchard was French, originally, and meant "white". Mary-Margaret didn't have any specific meaning, although there was a famous biblical character named Mary that was the mother of a savior of sorts. But _Blanchard_? Singled out by the Evil Queen?

It was definitely Snow White.

But where was her Prince Charming, then? Belle had mentioned a number of princes in her deals, but they were almost always chasing some princess or villain so that was no help. And no one had bothered to assign a name to a lot of these fairytale princes. Ms. Blanchard didn't have any male friends, (or really...any friends at all,) so...best come back to that.

_**Victor Whale=Doctor Frankenstein** _

Again, a book character, written by Mary Shelley. The Frankenstein of the novel had been a moody young med student, which didn't quite fit with the arrogant, womanizing Dr. Whale...at all. But that fit with the backwards personalities of the townsfolk. Jefferson promised to tell Rumpelstiltskin the tale of, what he called, "The time The Dark One got the Mad Hatter and Frankenstein to screw with the Evil Queen and steal from the Queen of Hearts."

_Ugh..._

Everything was so blood complicated, it wouldn't surprise the once simple Frontlands spinner if half the kids in the elementary school belonged to the old woman that lived in a shoe...

* * *

Ruby and Dr. Whale had this thing, Lacey noticed. They smiled and they flirted and they stared, and then Mrs. Lucas would either bark at Ruby to get back to work, or take out the doctor's order herself and give him such a fearsome glare that Whale could do nothing but stare at his plate until he was finished and then run away after paying.

Lacey sat there watching, betting with herself whether it would be a yell-at-Ruby or glare-at-Whale sort of day. The odds were strongly in favor of a yell-at-Ruby day because the waitress was leaning her elbows on the counter, affording Whale a good look down her unbuttoned blouse.

And then the diner door opened and Gold came in.

The first snow of winter was looming, and people were certainly dressed for it in scarves and sweaters and coats that gave them the figures of marshmallows. Gold was bundled up in a battered coat and gray mittens, with a surprisingly colorful blue-and-yellow scarf around his neck. The poor man's hair was as ruffled as anyone's who had just come in, and Belle could see the silver sideburns normally covered by his shaggy hair.

Sunday was a day that Lacey typically kept the shop closed. There was no point in keeping it open all week, and Gold had the same hours when it was his shop. Lacey wasn't sure what her shopkeeper did with his day off, but today he seemed as inclined as she was to eat dinner at Granny's.

Only so had most of Storybrooke...

Despite the crowding, Lacey was alone in her back booth. Every other seat was full, (one table of couples had two girls sitting on their boyfriends laps even,) and Gold looked around rather helplessly, leaning on his cane.

No one paid Gold any mind. The man had this unusual ability to be invisible in a room filled with people, even Lacey could overlook him, and she never missed anything. It was really the scarf that caught her eye, and for some reason she thought it was the wrong color...

Gold slowly limped his way to the back of the dinner and Lacey smirked when his eyes fell on her and he paused.

Oh, what the hell?

She crooked a finger at him and Gold obediently came to her table. She resisted the urge to say, _'Good boy'_ and motioned to the opposite bench.

"I'm not going to bite you Gold, have a seat."

He smiled sheepishly, lowering himself down on the bench and placing his cane beside him. After wriggling out of his coat and unwrapping his scarf, Gold consciously ran a hand through his hair, looking at the tabletop.

"Ah, th-thank you, Ms. French," he murmured shyly.

Lacey smiled, bumping his foot with the toe of her boot under the table. She didn't have time to worry if she was being inappropriate because Gold's face twisted and he hissed in pain.

"Oh, oh god, are you-"

"I'm okay, I'm okay," he groaned, shifting uncomfortably. "The, ah, th-the cold sort of makes my ankle act up. Ow, jus', ah, d-don't do that again, please?"

 _'Shit,'_ Lacey inwardly groaned. _'Shit, shit, shit. What the hell Lace? Are you completely retarded? Just be glad you aren't humiliating yourself on a first date...because we aren't dating...shit!'_

" _RUBY_!"

Lacey and Gold both jumped in their seats at Mrs. Lucas's bark. Ruby rolled her eyes and shouted back, " _What_?!"

"You're not at the Rabbit Hole! Try and interest somebody in the _chicken_ breasts on the menu!"

"Okay! _God!_ " Ruby slapped the counter before stomping around to the dining area. "So _sorry_ for taking a breather!"

"Less talking, more working!"

"Less griping, more patience!"

"They are...interesting..." Gold said with a smile that seemed hesitant to be seen, lest a Lucas come and slap it off his face.

Lacey snickered against the back of her hand. "That's one word for it..."

Ruby wasn't the worst waitress, no matter how Mrs. Lucas complained. She seemed to know Lacey and Gold were waiting for a server...only she faltered at seeing the two of them sitting across from each other. A small part of Lacey preened at the idea of the waitress seeing them together, while the rest of her fiercely told that part of her to shut up because it didn't matter.

"So..." Ruby paused. "Are you... _two_...ready to order? Gold?"

Gold gave her a sheepish smile, shaking his head. "I, ah, I just sat down, I'm not sure yet."

"Oh come on, it's not like Granny's menu ever changes. Umm, Ms. French?"

Lacey smiled. People got nervous when she smiled, Ruby was no different.

"Chicken parm and a glass of white wine," she said, tapping a manicured nail on the tabletop. "If you please?"

Ruby nodded woodenly, glancing back at Gold. He hesitated and, so timidly it was like he was asking Ruby if it was okay, said, "May I have a hamburger? With pickles, please?"

"Of course," she chirped, making a note. "And to drink?"

"Um, a cup of tea, please?"

Ruby gave another nod and darted away with her notepad. Whale ogled her ass as she went by, and thus, the universe returned to normal.

"I think she thinks we're on a date!" Lacey whispered, and poor Gold's head snapped up so quick it was a wonder he didn't get whiplash.

"We-She-What? But-No, no, I-What?"

Lacey giggled and his brain finally caught up to his mouth. Gold chuckled a little, shaking his head. His fingers somehow found the napkin-wrapped silverware and he started fiddling with his spoon, clinking it against the knife.

"Ah...I, er, I don't think..." he hesitated, then laughed a little more. "I don't think so. Thank you for sharing your seat with me, ma'am."

"Well it's not like you could sit on the floor. You like the hamburgers here?"

"I do. They're good with the pickles, though Mrs. Lucas charges extra for those. What's chicken parm?"

Lacey blinked. "Uh, you know, breaded chicken, tomato sauce, some mozzerella cheese melted on top. It's not bad either. Mrs. Lucas should really consider bragging about her burgers and chicken parm rather than her lasagna."

Gold crinkled his nose. "I had that once." He did not sound impressed, and the look on his face made Lacey want to giggle again, but she admirably restrained herself. They weren't on a date, but Lacey despised being the giggly girl.

"So, what are you up to on this fine, blustery day?" she asked.

"Oh, ah, nothing really. I was out for a walk. I plan to go back to Odds and Ends and buy some more yarn."

"Yarn? Oh, do you knit or something?"

"Yes," Gold nodded, his hands going to fuss with his discarded scarf. "Nothing too grand. Scarves, mittens, blankets, mostly like that. Maybe I'll try my hand at a sweater next."

Lacey eyed the scarf in his hands. It was a little long, made from squares of brilliant sky-blue and a warm golden yellow. "You made that yourself, then?"

"Yes ma'am," he nodded, a faint glimmer of pride flickering in his face.

"Mmm...it looks nice." _'It's the wrong color...'_

Lacey wasn't sure why she felt so strongly about the color. In her mind, it should have been dark red, maroon really, but it was quite clearly blue-and-gold here. Maybe he'd had a red scarf before?

"Do you have another one?" she asked, testing her theory.

"No, this is the only scarf I have," Gold said. "I, ah, I just recently started knitting again. Why? Would you like one?"

 _'Maybe...?_ ' "No, I just couldn't remember if you'd had a different scarf before. You'd have made a good spy, Gold, you're good at blending in."

A slightly humorless laugh escaped his lips. "So I've heard, Ms. French."

Lacey's wine and chicken parm came out before Gold's burger, though he could sip on his hot tea. Personally, Lacey thought Granny's tea was lukewarm piss in a cup. But their iced tea was good, however, Lacey wasn't in the mood for cold tea, hence her white wine. Conversation stilted when the food arrived, except for when Lacey almost laughed again.

Gold didn't put the pickle slices on his hamburger, he ate them like chips. That was funny to her.

Then Ruby came by with the check and seemed hesitant to hand it to either one of them. Lacey, feeling rather calm after her second glass of wine, said, "We aren't eating together, Miss Lucas."

"Oh."

"Yes."

"Oh, okay! I'll be right back, um, one second please?"

Gold sighed, playing with the bottle of ketchup. He liked a lot of ketchup on his burger, and to dip his fries in. While Ruby was digging up separate bills for them, Lacey smiled at her unexpected companion.

"You like ketchup?"

Gold blinked, then looked down at the leftover red smears on the wax-paper liner. "Oh. Well...yes," he smiled shyly, giving the bottle a funny little wiggle. "Condiments are this world's most powerful magic."

The smirking and the bottle-wiggling were ridiculous and Lacey found herself grinning back. If they were on a date, she might've had to kiss him for being such an idiot.

But they weren't on a date, so, Lacey paid her check and he paid his, and while he held the door for her when they left the building, Gold headed one way and Lacey went the other. Alone.

Which was how it should be because it wasn't a date.

* * *

Inspiration struck at funny times.

Rumpelstiltskin had, quite by accident, eaten lunch with Lacey French. It was something of a rough start, what with her kicking his bad ankle in just the wrong spot, and Ruby misinterpreted the situation as them being on a date, but...it wasn't too bad. He made an idiot of himself with that ketchup comment, but still.

He'd never quite figure out what Belle's storybook counterpart was. Nobody seemed to know the stories or the Dark One in this world, even in fiction. Then again, Keith Noddingham might've been the Sheriff of Nottingham. But Rumpelstiltskin couldn't be sure because there was no Robin Hood.

No Robin Hood...or Prince Charming...no Frankenstein's monster...

Wait.

It never occured to Rumpelstitlskin until that moment how many people were missing. No Prince Charming, but there was a Snow White and Evil Queen. There was a Mad Hatter, but no Alice or Cheshire Cats. And hadn't...yes,  Frankenstein was from a black-and-white world...

Who else was missing, and how many characters weren't found in fairytales?

* * *

Basil had been the Sheriff before Graham...well he was the Sheriff when Graham was his deputy. Graham had always had a keen eye and a sharp nose for trouble, that was why he'd hired the boy.

But then, and it infuriated Basil that he could never prove it, he was declared a corrupt cop by The Mirror and with Graham's testimony he was thrown out of office. Police work was all Basil had ever known and so it was a very short time before he lost everything: No job, no home, no dignity.

He had his battered violin, at least. Storybrooke may not have liked him, but they liked his music. Some people found it charming to have the worn homeless fiddler busking in the park, tossing change into the case at his feet when they felt generous.

When they weren't generous, they spit on him and threw trash into his case.

Such was his life.

Basil was rather tall, roughly six feet when he stood up straight, and he'd always been rather gaunt even before he wasn't eating regularly. His hair was dark and he attempted to disguise the greasiness and tangles by wearing a cap. His gray eyes were sometimes bloodshot because he sometimes couldn't sleep, and sometimes he smoked much too much. The only thing Basil stole (he had standards, mind you,) were cigarettes, because his nic fits were unpleasant for everyone, including himself.

One thing that was nice about being a forgotten member of society was that Basil knew everything. There were a number of people who could make that claim: Mayor Mills, Sidney Glass, Ms. French...but Basil could loiter anywhere like a shadow, listen in on everything from the mundane to the salacious.

Like the tawdry affair between the good sheriff and the honorable mayor? Oh yes. Basil knew _all about_ that.

This afternoon, Basil sat on the street corner with the library behind him. There was an artistic appeal that seemed to encourage people to toss change into the violin case here, his gray eyes registering perhaps a two dollars and twelve cents in the hour he'd been sitting here. The sole dollar bill in the case had been a donation from Mr. Gold, who was one of the most generous "tippers".

Gold was a slight, older man with long graying hair and a cane. He was really the only disabled person in Storybrooke, come to think of it. Basil had always been considered odd because he had a detached way of looking at things. Like, some people would think Gold going out for walks was hardly irregular...while Basil Baker had followed him to the old tackleshop on the waterfront.

Jefferson, that eccentric, was there too. Basil wasn't sure what they did in there, but it seemed worth keeping an eye on...

_**For now...** _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter XIII: Gold does some thinking, walks with Lacey, and he and Jefferson consider adding another person in their investigation...


	13. XIII. The Great Detectives

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When we last left off, Gold and Lacey had a pleasant encounter, and a new observer enters the fray....

The list of names Rumpelstiltskin had was growing to be rather impressive. So was his collection of knitted goods.

Sometimes it helped him think. It wasn't spinning, but there was still something soothing in the clicking of needles while a blanket formed before his eyes. Other times it just was a novel way to kill time. Jefferson said he should watch TV, which was invented to waste time, but the big box kind of scared Rumpelstiltskin.

The radio was okay. The music sounded peculiar, and he wasn't sure what sort of instrument made some of those sounds, but it all had a catchy sort of beat to it. During December and part of November, they had played "Christmas music", for the holidays, which seemed to put a lot of emphasis on piano, white snow, and jingling bells.

Speaking of bells...

Over the holidays, Rumpelstiltskin had made a pair of mittens for Lacey French. She already had a pair of sturdy, black leather gloves, but he saw the midnight blue yarn and thought it was just the sort Belle would have favored. He made the mittens, and...proceeded to chicken out. He couldn't do it.

So they sat in a drawer. Mocking him.

Rumpelstiltskin wasn't entirely certain what to do with all he'd made. He could make a single-colored scarf in about one night of insomnia. (Which happened frequently, of course.) Multicolored ones took a little longer. There were about nine scarves neatly folded with the three pairs of mittens on top of the two blankets he'd made in the past three months. The blankets were simple things, colorful square blocks stitched together. Not like the knitted lace blanket he'd made for Belle.

Currently, the former spinner was finishing off a thick, warm scarf. It was made from stripes of sandy brown and a darker, woodsy brown. Rumpelstiltskin planned on giving it to the musical beggar he saw around town sometimes. Maine winters were long and it was freezing in the middle of February, and he'd spent enough time sleeping rough to know something like a scarf wouldn't go unappreciated.

Rumpelstiltskin wasn't sure what to make of the beggar. (He wasn't really begging, mind, but he wasn't really sure what to call a homeless person without a job in this land.) The only time he was unpleasant seemed to be when he ran out of those little white smoking sticks that smelled unpleasantly like tobacco and ash. For the most part, the man was a quiet, thoughtful sort. But he looked smart. There was something oddly perceptive about him that Rumpelstiltskin couldn't shake...

Maybe the scarf would give them a chance to talk?

* * *

Lacey saw Jefferson across the street.

What that crackpot got up to was his own business, so long as it didn't involve her. Or her properties. He had wide eyes and a distracted manner more often than not, and Belle wondered if he was bipolar. Or schizophrenic...

Something was off with that guy, anyway.

Ordinarily, Lacey wouldn't have noticed Jefferson standing on the sidewalk there. It was in a nondescript spot, half in an alley at that. But what caught her eye that afternoon when she headed back into town to collect The Rabbit Hole's rent...was that Jefferson was talking to Gold.

Weird...

Lacey stopped and stared at the two of them. Gold was leaning on his cane, and wearing his coat and scarf and mittens. There was another scarf in his free hand, a brown one. Jefferson was standing more in the shadow of the alley, looking around nervously. The thought that they were conducting a shady business deal for a scarf's worth of drugs made Lacey snort.

And then made her think...

Gold was awfully thin. She'd never seen him smoking, and he always smelled like the shop-like musty old treasures and dry paper,-but maybe he was...recreationally using?

Lacey stood there wondering what sort of drugs Jefferson could be selling. Marijuana and magic mushrooms seemed high on the list, but Jefferson was manic enough for cocaine...

Why was she thinking about this?

Lacey watched Gold go down the street and Jefferson vanish into the alley, no packages exchanged. Out of sheer nosiness, Lacey went down her side of the street, shadowing Gold as he continued on to the corner of the library. Basil Baker was still out striking a mournful sort of tune on his battered violin, his violin case open on the sidewalk. The ex-sheriff was looking...well, all things considered. Unwashed in threadbare clothes, but healthy enough in her amateur opinion.

The details of Sheriff Baker's fall from grace escaped Lacey. It had something to do with corruption, but it had all happened something like three years before Lacey returned to town. Regina had her pet Graham, (poor man,) fill that vacuum of power very quickly though.

_Mighty suspicious..._

Lacey stopped and watched as Gold went up to Basil with the scarf. Oh. He was giving him the scarf.

Basil looked suitably confused, as most of Storybrooke ignored him save for tossing a few dimes in his direction. Or spitting on him. After a beat he did accept it, though, and it seemed the two men were chatting now. How odd...

* * *

"Thank you," the man said slowly, taking the scarf from Rumpelstiltskin's hand and draping it around his neck. "I appreciate it, sir."

"No matter," Rumpelstiltskin smiled. "I make them when I can't sleep, you looked like you could get more use from it."

"All the same, thank you, sir," the man nodded, his accent, to Rumpelstiltskin's ears, what this world classified as British. "I don't believe we've formally met. Basil Baker, how do you do?"

"R-Ah, Mr. Gold," he replied, correcting himself. "Thank you. You play very well."

Basil smirked a bit, patting the violin lying across his lap. "Practice makes perfect, and I have certainly practiced."

Rumpelstiltskin's musical accomplishments ended at humming, so, he could appreciate that. The only story with a reference to a violin he could recall, though, was a cat playing one as a cow jumped over the moon. Not very helpful at all. Um, there was a play about a violinist on top of a cottage or something, wasn't there?

Basil drew one of those white sticks, (a cigarette?) and a lighter out of his coat pockets and lit up with a noxious puff of smoke. Whatever the hell was in that smoke seemed to relax him, his gray eyes hooding even as they skimmed over the spinner.

"You work for Miss French, don't you?"

"Yes."

"What do you do, exactly?"

"I...well, I run the counter, clean up. Why?"

"You'd be surprised how many people think Miss French is running a mafia operation out of her shop," Basil snickered, smoke curling out his hawkish nose. "There's quite a veil of mystery to your lady."

Something in Basil's stare made Rumpelstiltskin feel like a bug under a microscope. Not threateningly, just...sort of...like a specimen being studied. Rumpelstiltskin shifted and as he turned his gaze away, he caught sight of Belle across the street, staring at him too.

Was there something wrong with his face? Why were they staring?

It was getting dark, but still too soon for the street lights to be lit. It made Bel- _Ms. French's_ skin look pale, almost as pale as it was in the Enchanted Forest. Her lips were burgundy and her blue eyes were startling even from across the road, rimmed with dark makeup, and a black coat wrapped around her soft little frame. A contrast of shadow and light, innocence and darkness. It would have made an artistic picture, if he were an artist, with the late evening light glistening on the snowy street...

"Have a nice night, Mr. Gold."

How long had he been staring at Belle...Ms. French...her? Basil was already packed up and striding down the street, a tall, thin shadow melting into the night without a backwards glance. Turning back around, Ms. French was still standing there, and Rumpelstiltskin swallowed thickly. He wanted to run...

But towards her, or away from her?

His feet had decided, apparently, and Rumpelstiltskin was halfway across the street before he knew it. Ms. French stood still until he was almost at the curb, then stepped back to maintain a distance between them. (Some things never changed...)

She smirked a little, nodding in the direction Basil vanished. "You making new friends Gold?"

"I, uh," he faltered. "I just...it didn't hurt anyone to give him a scarf. I have almost a dozen lying up in my apartment."

Ms. French reached out and prodded the loose end of his scarf. "Then why do you wear the same one?"

"I...like this one?"

She shrugged and they started walking. They were an arm's length apart and the shop was close, so it wouldn't be a long stroll they were taking. Sticking her hands in her pockets, his companion turned to him and asked, "Why do you knit so much?"

Rumpelstiltskin shrugged. "I have trouble sleeping sometimes, and it passes the time..." It occured to him, then, that in any world, it was inconceivable that Belle/Ms. French wouldn't know something, and he asked, "What happened to Basil?"

"Basil? Oh. Well about three years before I came back to town, he was accused of corruption and fired. His deputy, Graham, was made the new sheriff. Law enforcement was all  
Basil Baker knew, so he just sort of lost everything. He's probably still one of the smarter men in town, even if he sleeps in an alley."

Hmm...intelligent, eccentric, musically-gifted law enforcer with a cigarette addiction...

That was something to go off of.

"So, why are you hanging around Jefferson?"

The question caught Rumpelstiltskin off guard: "Pardon?"

"You and Jefferson. What do you get up to? I mean," Ms. French held up her hands. "If you're drinking buddies, or something _else_ , that's your affair. But if you're blazing up above my shop when I'm not there, or snorting or shooting or Lord knows what else up there-"

"What?" Rumpelstiltskin rarely ever saw Jefferson out in Storybrooke, this evening being a fluke and he had to go meet him at Gully's later, but they certainly weren't up to anything...creepy. "I just talk to Jefferson sometimes. We've got a few similar interests but it's not like we're close, really. Why would I be lighting fires above the shop? There's no fireplace."

Ms. French looked at him like she wasn't sure whether he was lying, or whether she could laugh at him. She did not, though, which Rumpelstiltskin was thankful for.

"Okay...if you say so," she shrugged with a little smile. Belle always had a pleasant set of dimples that appeared when she smiled. Once upon a time, Rumpelstiltskin wondered how it would feel to trace with his fingertip. Or, if he was very bold in that fantasy, to kiss.

He was probably pathetic and laughable, but that desire still tickled the pit of his stomach. Belle's lips had been so soft and warm, her sharp little teeth made him shiver when they nipped at his. Even if it ended in disaster, Rumpelstiltskin remembered crushing her skirts in his hands, wishing he was brave enough to grab her properly and pull her against him.

It was hardly fair that in both worlds, Belle and Ms. French were beautiful, powerful, successful young ladies and he was her ugly, weak, worthless employee helpless enamored by her. It was so tempting to reach out and take her gloved hand in his, to peck her cheek, that unending want to pull her near and bury his face in her soft, snow-flecked hair until everything else melted away around them.

It was a good thing the door to Old World Books and Antiques was right there, because he needed an escape right about now.

"Have a good evening ma'am," he mumbled, darting to the door and fumbling with his key in the knob.

"Uh, yeah, yeah, g'night Gold," she said slowly.

Rumpelstiltskin did not see the way the woman paused, almost like she wanted to say more, before walking away...

* * *

A brief perusal of the dictionary and encyclopedia revealed what sort of shooting and snorting Ms. French believed him to be doing. The shooting especially was disturbing enough that Rumpelstiltskin, despite never being near a needle, was developing a healthy fear of.

Drugs were scary.

He needed a distraction to fill the hour before he had to meet Jefferson, and began checking for a fictional character that fit the description of Basil Baker. Until now, Rumpelstiltskin distinguished most of the citizens of Storybrooke as fantasy characters. The only real exception to the rule was Dr. Whale, who was Dr. Frankenstein. Jefferson said he was from "the Land Without Color", a sort of Gothic black-and-white Victorian world.

The Victorian period of this world was characterized by morality that seemed a bit biased in favor of upperclass fair-skinned men bearing impressive facial hair, advances in technology and medicines, and a tendency to regard women as subservient possessions despite Queen Victoria being the longest-reigning monarch in British history and one made of stern stuff. Hmm...

Oh, wait.

Rumpelstiltskin had been checking through crime-solving stories. There had been several clever, chain-smoking detectives, but none of them seemed right. Too modern, mostly. Nancy Drew was a delightful young lady though, he would have to come back and read more of her work later. Several of the modern novels kept referencing a name though, and Rumpelstiltskin thought that he recalled it from breezing through the Victorian sections of his encyclopedia...

* * *

Usually Jefferson arranged his meetings with Gold, (always Gold, Rumpelstiltskin was too much of a mouthful,) over the phone. This evening had been a rare occurence where they met on the street, so it just made sense to personally ask him over.

This was the third time they'd used their hideout. The second time, Jefferson dragged out the whole story of how Gold came to work for Belle in the old world. It all sounded fairly standard: Desperate human, deal with Dark One, price of magic, etc., etc., and so forth. Only...there were kindnesses exchanged that one didn't expect from the Dark One. And then...kissing. That boggled the mind. Not so boggling as the spinner having a crush on a young Cora...no that fell under disturbing. Very, very disturbing...

Gold burst into the shop and shut the door behind him, locking it for good measure. A saftey precaution, since it was harder to believe someone had broken into a locked building.

"Okay," Jefferson looked down at a sheet of his own notes. God he had crappy handwriting. "So, I've done some digging. I thinking Albert Spencer is King George, he's still a hard-ass so that hasn't changed. I guess he didn't have much positive to take away in the curse-"

**Bam!**

Jefferson jumped, nearly falling off his stool. Gold had just slammed a book down on the counter, and he looked a little...off.

He pulled open the book to an illustration, thumbing through the pages quickly. "What do you know about Basil Baker?"

"The homeless fiddler? Nothing really. He's homeless. And plays the fiddle."

"Ms. French said he used to be the sheriff, before the Huntsman. He's clever, thin, and plays the violin. Who does that remind you of in your cursed memories?"

Jefferson paused. He didn't like thinking about his cursed memories when he was balanced between the two identities in his head. It had been nearly two years and he was still getting the hang of it. There were still days when he totally lost it to cursed!Jefferson. But Gold didn't really give him the chance to puzzle it out, and Jefferson's eyebrows rose up at the illustration of the man in his dressing gown and smoking pipe on the page.

"Sherlock Holmes... _Sherlock Holmes?!_ "

"Think about it," Gold said, digging in his pocket for the small notebook he'd taken to carrying around. "Sherlock Holmes plays the violin, he's a consulting detective, and he smokes. And he lives onnnn...?"

"Baker Street. Oh...oh!" Jefferson grinned. "Like...Baker, and he lives on the streets? Okay, okay. Why Basil-No, wait, Basil Rathbone is like, the definitive Sherlock Holmes portrayal. Right?"

Gold looked confused and Jefferson just grinned.

"I watch TV."

Gold nodded, making a note of that information. "I did read that the definitive film version of Frankenstein was directed by James Whale."

"See? We're a great team," Jefferson spread his hands. "I watch TV and commit burglary, you read and research."

"You commi-Nevermind," Gold shook his head. "I don't want to know. The point is, the town is called Storybrooke. That's almost a perfect pun off of the word _'storybook'_ , and the majority of the townsfolk are fairytale characters. Right? So why is Doctor Frankenstein the primary medical professional in town, and why is Sherlock Holmes playing violin on street corners?"

While Jefferson probably wouldn't admit it out loud...Gold was smarter than him. The former hatter wasn't sure if it was because Gold spent so much time in Belle's presence, reading in her library, or if he just _was_. But the man was sharp as a tack. He was either working up to something he'd discovered or using Jefferson as a sounding board for a theory. Presumably the latter, since Gold then drummed his fingers on the book cover.

"Do you recognize anyone else in town from Wonderland?"

"Uh...no, actually. Almost everyone is from the Enchanted Forest." Huh...didn't notice that before... "Except for Whale, and Basil, and me. So far, anyway."

"So how did all of you get swept up in the curse, if the curse was cast in the Enchanted Forest?" Gold asked. "You, _you_ were born there. That could explain it."

Alas, if only it were so simple.

"Remember how I said I had to make a magic hat?" Jefferson shifted on his seat. "So, I very nearly filled a cottage with my failures, hats that didn't work. I almost lost my mind, but then...I did it. A perfect, working portal-making hat. So before the Queen's guards could come, I jumped through the portal home. Only I'd barely set foot on the soil when a purple cloud hit and...that's about all I remembered until I started with this dual memory thing."

Gold pursed his lips. "That's why you remember. You were barely out of one portal before you were caught in another."

See? Very smart man. Right here.

"But that still doesn't explain the doctor and detective," Jefferson puzzled. "Whale was always a man of science, he didn't really believe in magic. I don't think I ever met Sherlock Holmes myself, so I can't vouch for him."

"I think we could use his help, though. He probably hears things we don't. We probably couldn't tell him about the curse, exactly, but maybe if we exchanged something for information? Like food, or money-"

Jefferson nodded along. "Alright, that's an idea. Okay. So, we hire Sherlock Holmes to spy after-hours on this town of fairytale and literary characters, right? That's the plan?"

Sighing, the former spinner nodded. "Yes, but it sounds daft when you say it like that..."

**_Like it wasn't?_ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter XIV: In which Jefferson hires a spy and makes a discovery in the hospital...
> 
> Okay! So Basil Baker _was_ going to be Sherlock Holmes. My logic followed with Jefferson's, as above. However, since EVERYONE thought it was The Great Mouse Detective, Basil of Baker Street, ( _and that idea is awesome,_ ) I'm not so sure what'll happen. Further developments are pending, so stay tuned!


	14. XIV. Jefferson Makes A Discovery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When we last left off, Gold and Jefferson realize there's a detective under their very noses, and decide to make use of it...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess which story has +1000 hits? It's this one! :D

If Basil could have afford it, he would have tossed the five dollar bill Graham dropped in his violin case down the grate. Like clockwork, once a month his former deputy drop a donation in the case and look sheepish. It was insulting to both of them, and yet, Basil never did throw the money away.

It was about nine in the morning, lightly snowing overhead. Basil had moved further under the stoop of the library after the first snowfall, and that wouldn't change until the spring thaw. Winter was by far Basil's least favorite season since he'd become homeless, he was never warm enough, and he had to juggle the desire to buy a hot drink with his nicotine addiction. To say nothing of how that little rat-bastard Smee kept trying to steal from his nest of blankets or find his stash of cash. He got a face full of fist for his last little exploit-trying to dig through Basil's coat while he was still asleep, wearing it.

Rat-bastard...

There were few people out at this mid-morning time. The townsfolk were in the doldrums of January, no one scurrying around shopping, some still laying in post-holiday comas. The children were back in school and the working-class were off at their jobs...except for Jefferson, who made one of his unusually appearances in town and was walking down the street with a cup of something hot.

Basil never knew quite what to make of Jefferson. During his people-watching, Basil assumed Jefferson was bipolar. Because sometimes he seemed to be very normal, unfazed, and sometimes he seemed confused and jumpy. He had a weird habit of watching Paige Grace whenever she was in the area, never really stalking her, but just... _watching_ , like he was waiting on something to happen. Not quite the characteristics of a child molester, but just something Basil kept an eye on.

For the most part, the reclusive designer was harmless, although in the past he was known to cause a scene with a few townsfolk. Dr. Whale, Ms. French, once he'd called Leroy "grumpy" and the town drunk that was only a half-step above Basil and Smee nearly beat him to a pulp.

In recent times, Jefferson had calmed down. He still popped up in odd places, but almost with a purpose. What that purpose was seemed to be between him and the voices in his head. Or maybe Gold. They still met in that closed-down tackle shop at the docks, but all they did was sit and exchange notes like students on a group project.

Basil was brought back to earth by the man himself stopping in front of him, holding out the cup. (Coffee, black, fresher than what Mrs. Lucas usually dished out when he came in with his handful of change.) Jefferson's blue eyes were clear and waiting, a thick wool coat wrapped around him and a top hat perched on his head, of all things. Something about the image of a long dark coat and tall black hat seemed...very familiar, to Basil, but he couldn't place why.

"You can keep the coffee, even if you say no to my proposition," Jefferson said then, and Basil's innate curiosity was piqued.

And free coffee was an extra delight.

"My answer depends entirely on your proposition," Basil said, wrapping his cold hands around the scalding hot paper cup. Ah, bliss. "If it's a proposal of employment I'm listening, but if it's a proposition of a _propositioning_ nature, you couldn't afford me."

Jefferson actually snickered at that. "A job. You see everything in town, don't you?"

"Not everything, I wager. But more than most."

"What would it take to get you to report some of the stranger things in town? Things that strike you as odd, especially in the wake of our dear Mayor?"

Basil arched a brow as he sipped at the coffee, so hot he almost burned his tongue. "You want me to be your spy, your eyes and ears, focused on Madam Mayor and her henchmen? You haven't approached Smee about this, have you? This is a job for his kind of vermin."

Shaking his head, Jefferson made a face. "Smee would spill his guts to Mayor Mills the minute she looked at him. I need someone dependable, capable, and with a bone to pick against her. I have reason to believe that the mayor in involved in more than local politics, something of a conspiratorial nature, including but not limited to the reason you are the Dishonorable Former Sheriff Baker and Sheriff Graham is made to warm her mayoral bed at night."

Hmm...well, that did describe Basil to a T, didn't it?

"Mr. Gold is involved in this investigation, isn't he?"

Jefferon blinked. "How did-"

"You both break into an abandoned tackleshop, Gully's, by the docks. A sort of club meeting, I've observed, always after dark. You are the driving force behind the investigation but Mr. Gold is the more intelligent of the two of you, surprising as he doesn't get out much. You have the initiative and perhaps secretive material, he has the brains, and you need me to find material hidden in plain sight. Yes?"

"Yes..."

Basil smirked into his coffee cup.

"My terms are simple. Every two weeks I'll report what I find at your tackleshop. You will provide me with cigarettes, and something to eat while I give my report. If it is amendable to you, I'd like to set up camp as it were in the alley behind Gully's. There's a nice little nook there under the steps that I've noticed, hidden behind the bins. For a man of my station that is prime real estate."

"Every two weeks you'll report?" Jefferson verified. "And if we ask you to mind something in particularly, will you do that?"

"Certainly. Do we have an accord?"

"Agreed. Two weeks from today you can make your first report, and move in anytime you want. Have a pleasant day Mr. Baker," Jefferson grinned, tipping his hat as he walked off, whistling a merry tune.

Basil took another long drink of coffee. He wanted it to last, but didn't want to be cold. But for the first time in a long time, something was going right in his life. Shady as all bloody hell, _but_ , it was a step forwards...

* * *

Sherlock Holmes was onboard, if that's really who he was.

Jefferson was still trying to wrap his head around that; The Mad Hatter just recruited Sherlock Holmes onto a project with Rumpelstiltskin. God. If he kept thinking like that, he was going to develop a third life in his brain, if he hadn't already. Ugh.

When he learned Gold had started knitting to pass the time,-a year and a half gone by already,-Jefferson attempted to find a hobby of his own. Odds and Ends had an incredibly varied stock of supplies, and the florist had a small section of gardening supplies, and Gold had mentioned considering trying to cook on his new-fangled stove. There was a greater amount of leisure time in this world than the last, so, Jefferson set up a small plot for growing a few things, and purchased some stiff felt from the craft store. He had only made this one top hat so far, a simple black thing he rather liked, and he'd gone at it bits at a time so he wouldn't be overwhelmed by flashbacks to Wonderland. Maybe he'd make another one, because it was nice to have something normal to-Well, _sort of normal_ to do, with his time.

Television was nice, but watching it for too long hurt Jefferson's eyes and he didn't understand everything that went on. Besides, there were only a few things to watch in Storybrooke; The news, a few "soap operas" he wouldn't admit to watching, these cartoon thingies on Saturday morning that were this side of violent or utterly obnoxious, some comedies he really didn't understand, a PBS channel, and the same channel that played the news played black-and-white movies on Friday and Saturday nights. Frankenstein had played around Halloween and Jefferson laughed at the fact that they got the doctor's name wrong and the issue was the monster's brain instead of the heart.

It did raise the question of what happened when Dr. Frankenstein returned with his magic heart for his monster/brother...perhaps when they broke this curse, and they had the time, Jefferson would ask.

Currently, Jefferson was on a mission in the hospital, though. A few people gave him an odd look for wearing a top hat, (like they ever went out of style, really,) but for the most part, the staff and visitors bustled around like mindless little ants in their colony. The mission had little to do with Dr. Whale, and more to do with something Gold mentioned two days ago when they met and decided to recruit Basil.

There was a Sheriff of Nottingham in Keith Noddingham, but, as Gold said, no Robin Hood. Gold had seen Robin Hood himself, the famous thief having broken into Belle's castle and stolen a wand. (How Gold survived letting the man go, Jefferson would never know, but obviously Belle cared for him a lot more than Gold realized.) No one in Storybrooke looked like the thief. On the off chance that Robin had been disguised, they had checked, and no one in town had the British accent and could be identified as Robin either. The jail in Storybrooke was a two-cell affair that usually held Leroy when he was on a bender, or Basil in the cold when Graham brought him off the freezing streets.

So, that left the Storybrooke General Hospital.

It was a brilliant place to hide someone because of the structure of the system. There were private rooms, visiting hours, and the building was so large it would take weeks to thoroughly scour it from top to bottom. Lots of good places to hide things. And after Regina abandoned him in Wonderland, Jefferson wouldn't put it past Her Majesty to lock Snow White's prince in a broom closet with a little flap under the door for a food tray. If that.

Jefferson made note of the hospital scrubs the staff wore. Maybe he should look into procuring a pair to sneak around more unnoticed. As it stood, Jefferson decided to get his bearings by lurking around on the open corridors. He'd lucked out because it was visiting hours now, with a few people puttering around visiting loved ones or friends or whatever. Peering through the open doors here and there,-a man with his foot in a cast here, a pale-looking grandmother there, a kid who looked liked they'd had an allergy attack because their face was splotchy-pink,-Jefferson didn't see anything particularly interesting.

_And then..._

When Jefferson got to the intensive-care rooms, there was only one patient, lying on a bed hooked up to machinery that went **beep!** and _ding!_ and one machine that he decided was a breathing apparatus, attatched to those tubes in his nose. It was a male, a little younger than thirty maybe, pale with dark blonde hair. That wasn't what caught Jefferson's attention so much as Mary-Margaret standing by his bed, putting a flower vase down on his unused nightstand.

Deciding to investigate, Jefferson removed his top hat and stepped into the room, clearing his throat. Mary-Margaret jumped and turned, but relaxed a little bit, probably seeing a distinct lack of murder weapons in his hands.

"Oh, ah, hello," she smiled wanly before a slight spark flicked in her eyes. "Are you visiting?"

"No, no, just looking around," Jefferson shook his head. Mary-Margaret's hazel eyes dimmed, and she glanced sadly at the patient which prompted Jefferson to take a closer look. "So...is he a friend of yours?"

The teacher, formally a royal princess-bandit, blushed, shaking her head quickly. "No, oh, no. This is, well, he's a John Doe, you see. Nobody's come to claim for him, he's been in a coma for..." she paused, her eyes going distant. "For...a very long time. It's sad, but maybe he'll wake up someday, or someone will come for him."

She looked so hopeful in that one moment that Jefferson felt so sad for her. Mary-Margaret was a tireless volunteer, a goody-two-shoes that took the time to polish those shoes to a textbook example of a shine, and yet, she didn't have a friend in Storybrooke. She was alone, Jefferson knew, in her loft apartment, not so much as a cat for company. The Queen's curse had done a number on Snow White...

And to Prince Charming, if John Doe was who Jefferson suspected he was. Lying there in front of them, in arm's length of his True Love.

Oh, Gold was never going to believe this.

After another moment, Jefferson excused himself and Mary-Margaret simply said goodbye. The former hatter hurried to find an exit from the hospital, eager to inform Gold about his find. Maybe he could write it on a note and slip it to Gold while buying a book? Maybe perform an excercise in masochism and see how this Alice in Wonderland nonsense had been written. Yes, that sounded like a good plan.

Only...the hospital was so damn _big_ Jefferson was having trouble getting out. Since he was up on the third floor his first plan was "go down" but then he had to find a door leading to the outside world in this maze of halls. He managed it eventually, but not after a red herring in the form of a locked door marked **EXIT** that wouldn't open...

* * *

Rumpelstiltskin sat reading One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest at his spot behind the counter. He wasn't sure if he was going to be able to finish this book or not because he was starting to identify with the nervous wreck that was Billy Bibbit and sensed an unpleasant ending to this tale, no matter how lively and well-intentioned (in his own fashion) the actions of McMurphy were...

The bell alerted him to a customer and Rumpelstiltskin looked up to see Jefferson hurrying up to the counter wearing a black top hat. Where did he get _that_?

"Do you have a copy of Alice in Wonderland?" he asked, and Rumpelstiltskin pointed to the children's section. "Thanks."

Belle had gone out to collect from Claude Little, a man who'd taken out a loan in order to purchase a shiny car curiously called a "Mustang". So Rumpelstiltskin, wanting to know what the hell Jefferson was up to, asked, "Where did you get that hat? And we're alone here so tell me the truth."

"What? Oh. This?" Jefferson removed his hat with a flourish. "I made it. I am a hatter."

"Yeah...so you are, yeah...alright, so what are you doing here?"

"Performing an exercise in masochism," Jefferson said, fetching the book and placing it on the counter. "And also bringing you an important update."

"It couldn't wait? You know Ms. French thinks you're selling me drugs."

"What? I mean, I hear there are some mighty magic mushrooms in this world and I did farm those in the old world-No, no, stop distracting me because this is critical: I found Prince Charming."

Rumpelstiltskin almost dropped the change he was making.

"What? Where is he?"

"In the hospital, he's a patient," Jefferson explained. "He's a coma patient, to be exact, totally unresponsive and no one knows his name. So he's John Doe, and get this, Mary-Margaret Blanchard visits him with flowers even though she doesn't know who he is. If that's not her prince, I'll eat this."

He punctuated his statement by waving his top hat around expressively.

Hmm...

"That makes sense," Rumpelstiltskin decided. "The Queen put Snow White under a sleeping curse, at least in the books. Perhaps the prince was cursed when the Dark Curse swept through town? Or maybe it's the Queen's way of separating Snow White from all forms of happiness."

Jefferson scowled. "It's probably that. Regina can't stand anyone but herself being happy, like the universe owes her something."

"She wasn't always that way, was she?" Rumpelstitlskin asked. Belle had once said there were extenuating circumstances to Regina's behavior, hadn't she?

The hatter reluctantly shook his head. "No...not really. I met her once when she was about nineteen or twenty, something like, lord, seventeen years ago? She was desperate to ressurect her boyfriend-remind me to tell you that story later,-but she wasn't sociopathic. She must've gone a little crazy as King Leopold's little wife."

Rumpelstiltskin was fairly certain Cora and, by her own meddling, Belle hadn't helped Regina's development. A case could perhaps be made for Belle, but Cora was...well, pity any child raised by a heartless Cora, that's all he could say.

The book's purchase completed, Jefferson tipped his hat and accepted the bag.

"Thanks, oh, and just so you know, Basil agreed to be our eyes and ears. We give him cigarettes and something to eat, and he'll tell us whatever he's seen, especially about Regina, every two weeks. He's also going to be staying under the steps in the alley behind Gully's, so, look out for that."

Jefferson turned to leave, then came back and peeked at the title of Rumpelstiltskin's book, wrinkling his nose.

"And I really wouldn't read that if I were you, you won't like the ending."

He was leaving before Rumpelstiltskin could ask why,- _was there anything more annoying than someone spoiling the ending and then not explaining the spoil_?-and before the bell stopped ringing, Ms. French was coming through the door, eyeing the way Jefferson went.

"What was _he_ doing in here?" she asked.

"Buying a book," Rumpelstiltskin answered. "Alice in Wonderland."

"Hmm...okay," she shrugged. "As long as you aren't using my place of business for anything shady."

"Never ma'am, you wouldn't allow it." And that was true, because Rumpelstiltskin couldn't imagine a world where either of her identities would allow him to get away with something unlawful on her property...without her consent.

Ms. French nodded, then her blue eyes fell on the cover of his book. A flash of worry went through them and she looked at him with something like concern.

"Have you ever read that before?"

"No..."

"Oh...well it doesn't have a happy ending, you know-"

"Oh gods who dies?" Rumpelstiltskin blurted out.

"Well, Charlie drowns by suicide, Billy cuts his own throat, McMurphy is smothered by Bromden-"

" _What?_ That-Why would he do that? McMurphy was-"

"He attacks Nurse Ratched after Billy committs suicide because she drove him to it. She ordered a lobotomy and Bromden did a mercy-killing because McMurphy was a complete vegetable and wouldn't want to live that way."

Rumpelstitlskin glared down at the damned book. He judged it by the cover. _Damn it._ He didn't know why the title mentioned a cuckoo nest, and judged it by the damn cover. There was a saying that said _not_ to do that. He should've quit the minute talk of a mental hospital began. Well _shit_.

Ms. French chuckled softly, removing the offending book. "I figured you wouldn't like that too much. Ah, you might also be aware of Anna Karenina, and The Bell Jar. And Hamlet. Everybody dies in Hamlet."

"Could you possible suggest something...lighter?" he asked, scratching his cheek. "Preferably where no one dies?"

Ms. French thought for a moment. "In the interests of a happy ending, I suggest Oliver Twist. There's a few deaths there but not of beloved characters really, the villains mostly. You don't strike me as a Pollyanna fan, and Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm is almost as bad. Saccharinely sweet little girls that are incapable of doing wrong, and have minimal misfortunes that are immediately overcome by _deus ex machina_."

Rumpelstiltskin smiled a little at how Ms. French's eyes rolled and she practically spat out the description. The could almost see her with white, glossy skin and a patchwork gown instead red lips and a miniskirt.

"Oliver Twist, alright. Thank you ma'am."

"Anytime," she smirked. "I'm happy to help anyone willing to expand their literary horizons. Shame that the library's been shut down for years, but hey, it's good for business."

She gave him a wink before breezing off to her office in the back, leaving the book on the counter for him to reshelve. Rumpelstiltskin went to do just that and wondered for a moment how long this curse would be in place before they could break it. According to one version of Sleeping Beauty, she was cursed for a hundred years before being woken by a random princeling. (Another claimed there was no True Love's Kiss, the prince just had his way with the sleeping maiden and she woke up screaming _in childbirth_ , but that was irrelevant to this case...and disturbing.) If they lived a hundred years of this life, Rumpelstiltskin doubted he could stay sane.

But then...at the same time...Belle liked him again. Or tolerated him. He was around, at the very least, back in her employ, and that was...really nice. Really, really nice. He didn't realize how much he missed that accent he could never quite forget, those blue eyes, and the way her hair fell in soft curls. She looked a little different here, less like a china doll, her eyes sparkling and with shoes on her feet, but she was still Belle, deep inside Ms. French.

If everyone in town woke up from this mind-numbing curse to their true selves, Rumpelstiltskin doubted that Belle would hesitate before throwing him out on his ear.

The continued investigation was bringing up one worrisome reoccurence that the former spinner liked to think of even less: Where Baelfire was. The children in Storybrooke didn't grow, which was the first clue that this town was ageless, and yet, there was no boy of fifteen or so that looked like Bae did. That could only mean one of two things, the first being obvious and the more disturbing initially, that being that he was...gone. Which Rumpelstiltskin refused to accept until he had undeniable proof.

The other option was only less disturbing, by nature of his being alive, but still upsetting because the spinner couldn't explain it:

**_Bae wasn't in Storybrooke._ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter XV: A time-skip to the 90s, and several important incidents in November...
> 
> The preceding chapter is brought to you by watching the classic _Frankenstein_ on TV and then trying to take the strain off Dr. Whale by looking up fictional doctors, and you end up reading the plot summary to _One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest._ I don't care how good your story is; If somebody dies, I need to know about it ahead of time! *ahem* As you were.


	15. XV. 1991

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When we last left off, Prince Charming has been located, Basil starts keeping an eye on things, and Gold grows fonder of Lacey French...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So Happy Birthday to me, and have an ahead-of-schedule update!

It was impossible telling day from night on Neverland. It was always dark, stars overhead, and the moon never moved from a position Bae once would've identified as near-midnight. The fact that it was always dark was really the least of the island's problems of course...

Bae wasn't sure, initially, what to make of the leather-clad pirate and his crew. His father said that his mother had been killed by pirates when he was little, Bae remembered that, he remembered one of his neighbors saying how it was what Milah deserved for whoring at the taverns and another said it was what Rumpelstiltskin deserved for not fighting for his wife. Bae never really formed an opinion of it, because he didn't recall his mother that well and what he did...wasn't very motherly.

However, the pirate captain, Killian Jones, or Captain Hook as the crew called him, said he knew Milah. That he loved her. And that the Dark One killed her to steal a magic bean from them, in a vindictive act against the woman who'd been married to her dead caretaker.

Before Hook revealed that last fact, he'd been trying to induce Bae to join his crew, to stay aboard the Jolly Roger. At first Bae thought it was because Hook was trying to protect him from the Lost Boys. Then he thought it was because Hook cared for him as an extension of his mother Milah.

But once Hook said that...Bae realized several head-spinning things at once. That his mother hadn't died, at least when he was a child, she abandoned them. Him. She'd run off with a pirate, and Rumpelstiltskin couldn't have fought Hook because he would have been murdered on the spot. And the Dark One had been distraught, Bae realized, over his father's death...but vindictive acts weren't her style. There was always a reason behind everything Belle the Dark One had ever done. Someone was in the wrong place at the wrong time, but more importantly, Hook was lying through his teeth when he vomited up, "We were going to come back for you, to be a family."

Whether Hook knew that was a lie on his mother's part or not, Bae didn't know. Or care.

"I had a family, that was my papa! I don't care what the Dark One did to you, all I know is that if she killed my mother to get at a magic bean, than my mother was somewhere she shouldn't have been. I will never join your crew of pirates, you lying seascum!"

It felt good to rail against him for all of that.

Not so much when he sicced the Lost Boys on him to drag him away to Neverland.

The Jolly Roger came and went through Neverland. They frequently fished newcomers the Shadow brought out of the water and delivered them to the Lost Boys in exchange for being left alone. Bae knew Hook was a coward and a villain for that, but one day the ship didn't come back. A small loss, but something Neal noticed when the newcomers only washed ashore.

_Dead or alive._

Baelfire realized early on that Neverland was not a magic island like little Chip had thought it was. There were mermaids, but they were almost all cruel and would drown you if they caught you. There were squid in the water too, with paralyzing ink the rougher boys liked to harvest to "play jokes" on others. It was all boys on the island, dressed in ragged clothes they patched as best they could, in greens and browns to match the jungle. They carried weapons, everything from clubs to axes to daggers and arrows tipped with dreamshade poison. The youngest of the boys were maybe seven, and the eldest were in their late teens. Felix was the second-in-command, with a scarred face and a blonde rat's nest and a sadistic streak only topped by that of the ruler of Neverland...

Peter Pan.

Bae remembered when he was six, a worldly eight-year-old had told the story of Peter Pan, who took unwanted children to Neverland to play and be children forever. It sounded like fun, but his papa turned white as a sheet and hugged him close while they lay in the bed. He never remembered his parents sharing a bed, Bae always slept by one of them, usually his father, until Milah was gone.

**_"Peter Pan is real son, but he is not a good person. All magic comes with a price, son, and that is one you must never pay."_ **

It made sense now: Peter Pan was evil with a thin layer of civility on top. He could talk a snake out of its skin if he wanted, and he took great pleasure in breaking down the boys the shadow brought, making them cry and feel that their parents had forgotten all about them back home. Pan had this set of musical pipes that played a song unloved boys heard, and when Bae had first gotten there he heard them. If his father was dead...then who really cared about him?

Only then, one day, Bae left his secret hideout and saw a boy dead on the ground, misty eyes staring into his without seeing. His name had been Balthus, and he had been the child of a tailor. He'd found some sharp thorns and plant fibers and figured out how to sew, so that he always had the nicest clothes out of any of the Lost Boys. He wouldn't mend for just anyone, usually there was a trade involved...and if the axe wounds butchering his chest were any indicator, obviously someone didn't want to trade for a new cloak.

The children on this island weren't unwanted by their families: They were trapped by Pan.

Boys like Chip, who were kidnapped by the Shadow, would have their hopes crushed out of them before they became true Lost Boys. The cruelest were like Felix and Pan, stomping on the kinder ones that missed their families and cried at night. That was why Bae made a hideout in the cave. A lot of boys had hideouts, Pan ruled by fear and fear alone, keeping them too terrified of him, and what the outside world might be like for them, to escape.

Bae might've been like them...except he met one person who had it the worst of all.

One day, quite by accident, Bae found a wooden cage with bamboo bars so tight together he could barely see inside. But he did, at a spot where it must've opened. And he met the startled brown eyes of a disheveled young girl, younger than him, who begged him to let her out. He did, and she flung her arms around him and sobbed "thank you" at least a dozen times.

Her name was Wendy Darling. She was the only girl, that she knew of, on Neverland. She'd let the Shadow take her to Neverland years ago, and it demanded she surrender one of her brothers instead. When Wendy wouldn't do it, it brought them all to Neverland. Her brothers had been gone for a long time, made to obey Pan's whims or she'd be punished.

Felix found them. He smirked nastily and said, "You let the Wendy-bird out of her cage Baelfire. I didn't think you were that stupid."

Two of Felix's friends put Wendy back in the cage while Felix beat the piss out of Bae, then spit on him and they all laughed.

Bae decided that he would escape Neverland or die trying that day. The only other female on Neverland was supposed to be a disgraced fairy, Tinkerbelle, but Neal had never seen her. They'd found one of the crueler Lost Boys stabbed through the eye one day and Pan had laughed. "Looks like someone made Tink angry."

Building a raft wasn't as hard as he thought it would be, or maybe time did pass faster here. Either way, it was harder avoiding the worst Lost Boys than making his escape plans. The trick was in navigating a way out, and the only clues he had were a few navigational lessons from Hook and an old nursery rhyme-The full moon in your sight, the second star to the right, straight on 'til morning, lay lands of dreams at night-as a guide. It must've taken years for him to mark the days, chart the stars, figure out east from west, and to poke holes in a coconut to form his three-dimensional star-map.

But he did it.

And while Bae left everything in his hideout, in case another boy stumbled across it and was clever enough to escape, he didn't once look back until he couldn't see that gods-be-damned island anymore on the horizon...

His rations only lasted for so long, but eventually Bae washed up along a desolate beach. There was nothingness for miles around, but the stars were inverted from what they were in Neverland. The moon was going down. There were crickets chirping, and, as Bae pressed inland, a paved road with white-and-yellow markings. And a carriage with lamps on the fronts rolled up, without horses, and stopped. The windows slid down, disappearing into the door, and a lady in her twenties stuck her head out, her face painted in bright colors and her hair fluffed out.

"Holy shit kid. What are you doin' out here in the middle of the night?"

"I, uh..."

The young man sitting behind a roung device on the other side said, "Jenny, what's the only reason a kid's out here in the middle of the night? Hey, kid, you need a lift to the next town?"

"Neal! You can't just pick a kid up like that!"

"What's worse Jenny, hitchhikers, or hitchkillers?"

"Ugh, you're lucky you're cute," she rolled her eyes, then the woman, Jenny, leaned out the window again. "Alright, hop in kiddo. We'll drop you off at the next town, alright?"

"Alright...?"

Jenny and Neal drove him into a town he couldn't recall the name of, and by then the sun was almost up. It was a rural town, Bae would later figure, but at the time the neon signs and streetlights and mailboxes and cars and everything had his head spinning. And then he found, behind some mom-and-pop store where Mom and Pop must've lived in the camper behind it, a clothesline with nice clean clothes. His father's voice in his ear whispered that stealing was wrong, no matter who from, but the salt-stiffened rags that didn't match anything Jenny or Neal had been wearing made Bae push that voice aside. He only took what he needed: A pair of stiff blue trousers and a short-sleeved gray shirt, and changed behind a bush further down the road.

That was the day that Baefire came to the Land Without Magic.

As he grew accustomed to the ways of this new realm, he fell in with what his father would've called "a bad crowd", in the sense that he wound up learning how to steal and fence, shoplift, pick locks and pockets, and learned from one pimply-faced older teen how to use the Internet for a lot of purposes. Including, once Bae spun a tale about running away from Canada, (once he learned where Canada was,) how to make a fake ID and documentation.

"I'm gonna need a name," he'd said, sipping a can of Coca-Cola. "Do you want I should put down Baelfire?"

No, no he did not. He wanted nothing to remind him of Neverland, or the Enchanted Forest, or Hook, or his dead father, or the Dark One, and that was all a hell Baelfire had to live through. The TV in the next room was playing a documentary on outlaws. Since "Jenny Sundance" sounded like a stripper name, Bae went with the second thing to pop into his head:

And that was how _Neal Cassidy_ came into the Land Without Magic, and shortly thereafter, snuck into a theater with his friends and got caught by the police for his first stint in juvie.

His papa would have been horrified, but papa wasn't there anymore, so Neal had to make do with what he had...

* * *

**November 22, 1991.**

Rumpelstiltskin had been here for eight years. It didn't feel too long, at times, and at others, it dragged on with a dulling monotony. His calendar, which would soon have to be renewed because they were approaching the end of the year, was currently set to November. He had never really liked his television, had turned on maybe three times in eight years, but the movie theater in town was a different story. There was something almost like magic about sitting in the darkened theater, watching people come to life on a big screen.

By some divine miracle, Rumpelstiltskin had never had a run-in with the mayor in all that time. He'd run into the Sheriff a few times, and Sidney Glass a time or two. Graham was definitely the better alternative as he was a perfectly personable, gentle soul. Jefferson envied this peculiar honor, saying that everytime he met Regina, it was like coming face-to-face with a wild tiger.

"Will she pounce? Will she threaten? Will she retreat into the jungle? You never know," he said, Basil snickering from his spot at the counter in Gully's.

Basil was a very valuable asset. Several little things clicked into place that hadn't made sense before once he started spying on the town: Archie Hopper was the town psychiatrist, and got on with everyone. (Jiminy Cricket for sure, and Marco had to have been Gepetto, but Pinocchio was missing.) The frightening butcher, Wilma Beaumont, was Little Bo Peep. (Belle mentioned her once, she wasn't anyone special, but it narrowed down the list.) The collection or short men with distinctive personalities, from Walter the dozy watchman to the perenially allergic pharmacist Tom Clarke, were Snow White's dwarf friends. Basil was very intelligent but he was also cursed, so he didn't notice how much time was passing in their investigation. As far as he was concerned, they'd only been at this for a few months, maybe, and the fictional names Jefferson and "Gold" connected each citizen with was a writing code.

Jefferson was taking the wait a little bit harder. Rumpelstiltskin understood perfectly because while Bae wasn't in Storybrooke, (a fact unfortunately confirmed, but as the list of missing characters grew, he had faith that Bae was back in the old world...somewhere...) he couldn't say it would be better if he were. Trying to imagine Bae living in plain sight, calling another man his father, oblivious to his real parent's longing, was...disconcerting.

The fact that Jefferson was quite clearly hanging onto sanity but a few precious threads didn't help matters, and his grasp on uniting his two identities wasn't quite the same as Rumpelstiltskin's. He'd ended up with two Jeffersons from two different worlds in his brain, united but radically different. Sometimes he was absent for weeks at a time, and Gold had to conduct more than one meeting with Basil alone.

It had cheered his distraught friend to no end when, in 1989, Rumpelstiltskin noticed that the Zimmerman twins, (Hansel and Gretel, had to be,) liked to pop into shops to stay warm, (and shoplift, though never in Old World Books and Antiques,) and Rumpelstiltskin had given them a merry red scarf for Ava, and a forest-green scarf for her brother Nicholas. It had given Rumpelstiltskin an idea as to how Jefferson could gift his daughter a Christmas present without anyone crying "stalker" and calling Graham. Miss Blanchard was thrilled with the idea when he said he could knit the elementary school children one scarf each when she was struggling to come up with a cheap gift she could give her students.

She paid for the yarn, and Rumpelstiltskin put in the hours until he had the scarves for her class. There was only something like eighteen kids in the classroom, so Rumpelstiltskin had made them just a little bit fancy. One girl got a full rainbow on her scarf, one boy got a tree at the end of a bright blue scarf simulating a tree. Paige Grace was delighted by her purple scarf with the white rabbit on the end of it, and Jefferson got the excuse in the diner to say, "I like your scarf."

"Thank you!" his daughter chirped, and Jefferson grinned for almost a week straight.

Rumpelstiltskin wound up making mittens last year. This year he was considering making hats, and was just waiting on Miss Blanchard to come in on November 30th to start fretting over it. He did wonder why the children forgot about the scarves and mittens by the time winter came back around, and where they went. The most puzzling part about this curse was that everyone had a place and no one seemed to notice they were trapped in time here...except for him. He wasn't aging of course, but some people still forgot his name, still seemed surprised to see him behind the counter, and the standard greeting from Charlie Brewster and his mother hadn't changed in eight years, down to the same math problem.

It was like he didn't belong here...

The only exceptions seemed to be, naturally, Jefferson, but also Basil and Ms. French. The only way Rumpelstiltskin could explain them was because he was in regular, constant contact with them. They were both oblivious and cursed, but they remembered his name and what he did the clearest. Ms. French came in at that very moment, wearing a little denim skirt and dark sheer tights and shiny black pumps, wrapped in her autumn coat and sipping a paper cup of hot tea. There was a second one in her hand and Rumpelstiltskin was almost confused before she put it down on the counter in front of him.

"Ruby screwed up my ordered and gave me the first one for free," she explained carelessly. "Have at it Gold."

She went into the back before he could say more than "thank you" and smile a little. Gold was ashamed to say he enjoyed watching his employer's skirts shorten over the course of the years, showcasing long, attractive legs in tall shoes. His mistress had always had beautiful legs when they were white and bared to her knees, but as the hems climbed up her thighs-

God. He was acting like Whale.

Savoring the sting of hot tea on his tongue, Rumpelstiltskin turned back to the workbook he'd purchased from Odds and Ends. He was studying hat patterns, trying to decide which one would be right for a group of 10-year-olds, when the door opened and admitted Mrs. Brewster's daughters.

He thought their names were Ginger and Camille, eleven and sixteen or so, respectively. Camille was wearing overalls that gave her no shape, a long-sleeved green shirt, and had long straight blonde hair brushing the small of her back, while Ginger was bundled in a puffy coat, wearing a school uniform. She must've just gotten out of school, Rumpelstiltskin decided after a glance at the clock.

Camille was going through the cooking magazines, and Ginger was all but hopping in place waiting on her. Rumpelstiltskin watched the sisters until the younger of the pair finally moaned aloud, tugging on the elder's sleeve.

" _Come ooooonnnn!_ We're gonna be late Cammy! Come on, come on, come on!"

"The theater's not going anywhere Ginger," Camille huffed, selecting one and flipping through it. When she put it back, the spinner thought Ginger was going to scream.

"If you make us late because you think you're too cool than I'm gonna tell Mom you're irresponsible!"

" _Whatever_ , it's just a big cartoon."

Rumpelstiltskin recalled several times each year the Brewster girls arrived with a similar quarrel in progress. Camille had a job waitressing on the weekends at Tony's, and had a keen interest in cooking, so, when Mrs. Brewster told her to chaperone Ginger at the movies, Camille bought a magazine to keep her occupied. Ginger was always worried about being late for whatever movie they were going to see, but as far as he knew, they were always on time. When Camille finally picked a magazine and brought it to the register, Ginger was back to tapping her foot impatiently.

"It's not a big cartoon," she finally said, once Rumpelstitlskin was counting out her sister's change. "It's Beauty and the Beast, and it's really finished this time! I don't wanna be that kid who has to avoid everyone from spoiling the ending before I see it for myself."

"What's to spoil? Beast meets Beauty's father, Beast traps father, daughter switches places, Beast falls for daughter and sets her free, daughter leaves, daughter comes back, they kiss, he's a prince, end story."

Wait...what? Rumpelstiltskin had read that story before, of course. It was a very popular story, "opposites attract" and all that, though some people equated it with Stockholm Syndrome. He'd never found the beast in Storybrooke though, and there were too many fair young ladies to accurately pick a beauty either. Basil never hinted at a domestically abusive couple that could've been a corrupt version of them either-

"That's not it at all! If you hurry, now, maybe I can prove you wrong too! Now come! On! _Cammy_!"

Ginger grabbed her sister's arm and pulled her out the door, and they were off down the street to the Downtown Movie Theater.

Perhaps, in his search for a beastly man and his fair lady, Rumpelstiltskin had been unable to see the forest through the trees...because the elements of that story, sarcastically deconstructed by Miss Brewster, had a familiar ring to them. And...

Rumpelstiltskin went over to where they kept a few parental books, including a few copies of the name book. He thought he'd seen something in there before, but had been in the middle of looking up someone else and hadn't pursued it further...there it was. Derived from the French word "belle", applied to a pretty woman and used in such phrases as "belle of the ball", and taken as the feminine form of "beau" which also meant "pretty", which was a synonym for "beautiful"...

 _Belle._ Beauty.

Then...who was her beast?

* * *

Lacey had picked up some to-go lasagna from Tony's, (the superior lasagna provider of Storybrooke,) when she saw Gold limping out of the crowd exiting the theater Friday evening. She saw him come and go from the theater sometimes, that wasn't anything special. But for some reason today she crossed over to him and fell in step, saying, "So how was your movie?"

"Hmm? Oh," he may have blushed a bit, and wasn't that just cute? "H-hello, Ms. French. Ah, good, good, the movie was...interesting."

"What'd you see? ?"

"Beauty and the Beast," Gold replied. "I like those animated features, it's amazing that all of it is drawn by hand. They named the character of Beauty in this movie, I don't think I've read an adaptation where her name is Belle."

Lacey shrugged, not noticing the expectant look Gold have her.

"Disney takes creative liberties. Have you read the Little Mermaid? The sea-witch told her the price and she was just stupid enough to fall for a shallow prince who fell head of heels for a woman he didn't know but could talk instead of her."

Gold pursed his lips. "I thought it was more that the mermaid was foolish. She had only met this man once, and she was little more than a child in love for the first time, and made a deal she didn't full understand the price of. The prince is a fool too, but love is a peculiar sort of emotion and you can't make someone love you. It just happens over time, like in Beauty and the Beast."

"I don't like the ending," she said shrugged. "Beast lets the girl go, which is shocking because that usually only happens when the woman makes a mistake. Then Beauty breaks her promise and doesn't return, her weak, trusting heart fooled by false tears, and only when Beast lays dying does she return to betow a kiss upon him, turning him into a handsome prince, happily ever after, the end. It's boring, it's a bad ending."

"As bad as Pollyanna?"

"You read that?"

They'd stopped on a street corner, waiting for a car to pass. Gold wiggled his cane a bit, giving her such a dry look Lacey couldn't help but smile.

"I read it. And as a physically impaired person myself, I am unimpressed. Or jealous, perhaps, but the point is, yes. I read it. I do see your point though. The Beast becomes a different, idealized man at the end of the movie, and it makes you think that only beautiful people get good things in life. Then again, the original stories were that Beast wasn't a snarling monster, he was just ugly and stupid. He wasn't a charming prince, and he couldn't articulate how he felt to Beauty."

"They also say he rejected the advances of an evil fairy that wanted to jump his bones, so, there's that too."

"Well, if you had forced advances place on you, that you rejected, and something as terrible as a curse happened, what would you do?"

Lacey paused, her mind blanking oddly for a second. What would she do? Probably...

"I'd probably still be me, the Beast of Storybrooke. There's no handsome Beauty here that could break my curse, so," Lacey tossed her head, flicking a curl out of her face. "A beast I shall remain."

"You aren't very beastly," Gold said, then definitely blushed and looked away. "I mean, you are, but you aren't a monster, I mean. No, I mean that you're not...you aren't bad all the way through, that is, you have your bad points certainly but so does everyone, and you have good points too. You're not evil."

Lacey stopped. They were at the intersection, then, where she had to turn one way to walk home and Gold had to keep going back to the shop. He couldn't really look at her, focusing on his cane, and this was uncharted territory for Lacey. A man was being nice, but without flattery, without sucking up, without expecting a reward for it. In her experience, men usually showed up with compliments and flattery and disgusting bravado when they were after you for something, and yet, here Gold was with the most stammering thing he'd said yet, completely shy, and just when Lacey was trying to think of something to say, he looked up and smiled.

"I'll be going now, good night Ms. French," he said, halfway across the street before Lacey could even get, "good night" out of her mouth.

She felt a little empty on her walk back home, like something precious had just slipped between her fingers that night in November...

* * *

One nice thing about the home they put Emma in after the Swans returned her was that they had a little bit of money, enough that the workers were friendly and the money went towards the actual care of children. Not every place did that. And once a year, they got to go to the theater and watch a movie. This year they'd waited until November, so they could see Beauty and the Beast. It premiered on Friday, the twenty-second, but the group went on Saturday night, like they had when The Sword in the Stone came out a few years back.

Emma had turned eight last month on the twenty-third. Unlike a lot of orphans, Emma knew her real birthday because she'd only been a few hours old when she was found. At a diner in Maine, or something like that, but she didn't live in Maine anymore. It didn't matter, really. Emma knew she was born in 1983, on the twenty-second or twenty-third day of October.

And she also knew she was abandoned by her parents that day.

It was common among the orphans and abandoned kids, Emma noticed, not to really care about their birthdays. It was just an anniversary of the day they were born to a family that didn't want them. Emma had been adopted when she was four, and remembered the one birthday cake the Swans had made with a red candle shaped like a four on the top. She'd gotten a few presents she couldn't remember now, got to eat two slices of cake, and stay up an hour later than usual. And then in November Mrs. Swan found out she was pregnant, and Emma spent Christmas in fostercare. Again. Like she'd never had a family.

Because _obviously_ she hadn't. Once the Swans found out about their real baby, suddenly Emma was just a kid taking up his or her bedroom.

Someone had called her "Ugly Emma Duckling" once. They hadn't been very bright and Emma beat the snot out of him on the playground later on, that visit to the principal's office having been totally worth it.

It seemed ironic now though. The Ugly Duckling didn't belong with the ducks, and was shunned by everyone because he didn't belong anywhere as a duckling. Because he wasn't a duck at all, he was a swan, and he grew up to be beautiful and found his own happy place complete with people who cared about him.

That was a nice story, but Emma didn't think it would happen in real life.

**_And especially not to her..._ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter XVI: In which Gold takes a tumble, Regina notices something, and there is a discussion of H.G. Wells...
> 
> Beauty and the Beast was issued in wide release November 22nd 1991. It had premiered unfinished with 30% still in pencil drafts earlier in the year to a ten minute standing ovation. And that makes me smile. X3


	16. XVI: Doctor, Doctor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When we last left off, Bae left Neverland and _Beauty and the Beast_ was released in theaters, raising some questions for Gold as to who Belle/Ms. French's prince could be...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Family medical issues are currently resolved, yay! Fun fact though, my grandmother went into the hospital on my birthday, got out, and then had to go BACK into the hospital on my brother's birthday. This has not been a fun past two weeks but it's looking up now.
> 
> So since we skipped a week--PREPARE FOR MUCH LITERARY NERDINESS!! (Also, don't drink and drive, no matter who you are. *glares at Ms. French*)

Basil wasn't sure how long he'd been working with Jefferson and Gold, he wasn't actually sure how their case against Regina was coming along either. They were interested in the oddest information, who went where and who did what, and if he remembered anyone in town that did this. But the meals and cigarettes were regular and the little home he'd made under the back steps was a cozy shelter, so he couldn't complain. Jefferson didn't always show up, and sometimes he was in an odd mood when he did. But Gold was a good, reliable person, dutifully taking notes and asking thoughtful questions. He also provided Basil with blankets, scarves, and gloves, which went a long way in winning his favor.

Then, on a snowy Sunday afternoon in December, Gold slipped on a patch of ice on the sidewalk.

It was dumb luck, or karma, that Basil was in the vicinity, a bit of money in his pocket with plans of buying a hot coffee and order of chips from Granny's Diner. He saw Gold, a bag of yarn in his hand, walking down the street by himself when his cane flew out from under him. His attempts at shifting his weight onto his good leg failed and he crashed to the cold ground, colorful skeins spilling out.

Basil (carefully) hurried over, but Gold hadn't hit his head. He was a little winded from falling on his side, bruised for certain, and dazedly looked up at Basil as he stood over him.

"Are you okay?" he asked. "Are you hurt anywhere?"

Gold hissed, reaching for his bad ankle gingerly. "I don't think I can get up on this," he grunted. "I think I need to go to the hospital."

Basil was torn between helping Gold up and hauling him to the nearest shop to get help, or running to the nearest pay phone for an ambulance. Fortunately, Graham, in the sole police cruiser in Storybrooke, rolled up, leaning out the driver's window with a cautious look on his face. He probably thought that Basil had knocked Gold down and was in the middle of robbing him, but Basil could deal with that annoyance later.

He stood up straighter and said in the sharp tone he'd used as Sheriff Baker; "Mr. Gold's had a bad fall, you need to take him to the hospital."

Graham got out the car and bent down to help Gold. "Can you walk?"

What a stupid thing to say!

"I-I can get to the car," Gold said, then looked around. "W-where's my cane?"

Basil fetched the worn cane and stuffed the yarn back in the bag. "I have it. I'll put it in the car."

Gold was loaded into the back of the cruiser, clutching his cane with the bag on his lap. Graham sent a curious look in Basil's direction but he wasn't interested, his work was done here, and he was going to Granny's.

He turned his back on his former deputy as Graham started pulling out his wallet, and gave one last look at Gold. He didn't look very comfortable, but he did smile a little ruefully at Basil from the back seat of the car.

"Thank you Basil, I appreciate the help."

Basil smirked back, tipping his cap. "Happy to be of assistance Mr. Gold, good luck at the hospital."

Then he left, a good deed for the day complete, and the promise of some warm chips and good coffee ahead of him in reward. He could hear the cruiser pulling away behind him, rolling off to Storybrooke General. Graham was a good man, but his association with Regina wasn't good for anyone. Especially Graham himself...

* * *

_He was late._

Graham was _never_ late. Unless Regina called him off, her sheriff always came to her house and they spent the night together. She'd stopped fretting over the morality of it about the same time she finally buried her remorse about the Flynns, firmly locking any contradicting thoughts in a little box in her mind and never opening it. Because she won, and she had been the winner for eight years now. That was what mattered here, her happy ending. Yes. That was what was important...

Even if it was growing increasingly _boring_. Not quite enough to make her regret total domination, and not quite enough to make her want to scream in frustration yet, but still, the little updates to the curse could only go so far in alleviating boredom.

Something had happened, and Regina was almost happier than suspicious as she dug Graham's heart out the box and thanked whatever loophole allowed bits of magic to remain in this world. It was only the strongest of magics that had survived, her Huntsman's heart for example. There was also Maleficent in full dragon form beneath the clock tower, but Regina avoided that place like the plague. For one thing, dragon!Mal was always super-pissed. For another thing, Regina didn't want anyone sneaking into the library. Since everyone in town as a storybook character, she supposed there was a wonderful irony in not being able to go to the hub of stories, the library, and seek out a happy ending.

There was Belle's bookstore on Main Street, but it was also half antique store, so Regina didn't much care about that. She only went there once in awhile to see if Belle was only playing dumb, but no, there was no Dark One waiting to strike. Just a cold, callous-hearted young woman hated by the local populace for owning their homes and places of business.

But back to _Regina's_ business.

She could hear things happening around Graham, not very far but only up close. And what she heard was an odd sort of murmur of voices, and then a man saying, _"...be fine. Stay off of that foot for a week, though, no unnecessary exertions. It's a sprain but you don't want to give that joint anymore reason to act up, okay?"_

And then another voice said: _"I will, thank you."_

The voice was familiar, but foreign at the same time. Graham must have walked away then so Regina ordered, "Call me, now." Then she sat by her phone and waited for him. In three minutes or so, the telephone rang and Regina picked it up.

"Hey, sorry I'm late," Graham said, sounding a little confused. "I know we had-There was an accident and I had to take someone to the hospital, I'm sorry I didn't call sooner."

Regina frowned. There was a yearly loop of events, and at eight years, she almost all the newsworthy activities in Storybrooke. "Who was in the accident?"

She'd been expecting a car crash sort of accident, but then Graham said, "Well it wasn't a car accident so much as someone getting hurt in a fall. Basil Baker was hovering over them and I thought he was getting up to some trouble so I stopped to have a look."

Regina wasn't entirely sure who Basil Baker had been in their world. _If_ he had been in their world. The helpful hints her curse gave her instead of rewriting her personality read that Basil had been a disgraced sheriff Graham replaced, but that wasn't really helpful at all. Then again, Frankenstein, who she hadn't seen since she was about twenty, was a doctor at the hospital, and then there was Jefferson...who she'd left in Wonderland and was a complete lunatic here.

Who knew? There was a variety of peasantry she didn't know, Basil could be one of them.

But then again, he might not.

Jefferson acted oddly, but he wasn't stupid. He knew better than to actively challenge her. There was a "psych ward" under the hospital that wasn't on the official town blueprints, but instead they were on a copy she kept hidden in her office. There was only one occupant of the ward, (well two, but that big mute man was utterly harmless and mostly played janitor,) and Regina wasn't sure who the nurse in charge was, but she performed her job as peacekeeper and jailer adequately. Jefferson didn't want to be the second occupant.

But Basil... _Basil_ acted oddly too. He knew more about everyone's business than anyone in town, and Regina sometimes felt eyes on her. She was sure it was boredom-induced paranoia, that longing for a challenge, but now...

"Graham, tomorrow, I want you to start keeping an eye on Basil Baker. Discreetly. See what he does."

"Of course, but I don't think he-"

"If you please, Graham," Regina ordered into the red glowing hard, firmly. "And come home. You're very late, and I'm tired of waiting."

* * *

Rumpelstiltskin had never spent so much time with Sheriff Graham, and it was only a car ride over. He'd stood in the hospital room while Dr. Sacker checked Rumpelstiltskin out, raising a brow at his mangled left foot.

The doctor was only an inch taller than Rumpelstiltskin was, but he was much broader. A sturdily built older man, with a square jaw, and a short-cropped brown-and-gray haircut and matching mustache. He wore a sweater vest and khakis, and if a human could be a teddy bear, Rumpelstiltskin supposed Dr. Sacker would like like one. Honestly, the former spinner was just happy that Dr. Frankenstein wasn't tending to him. Not only had Jefferson discovered Whale was in Regina's pocket, but the thought that a scientist famous for reanimating a corpse would be treating his ankle quite frankly horrified Rumpelstiltskin.

Graham left, before Sacker finished up his visit. He suggested some Tylenol and an ice pack or a heating pad for his further damaged ankle, and also suggested he schedule a follow-up appointment with a surgeon due to the condition of the joint. Gold had made if fifteen years in the Enchanted Forest, plus eight here, with the ugly, twisted thing, so he declined that offer politely as he could.

By then, Gold realized that Graham hadn't left the room, he left the building. After about half an hour of waiting in the hospital room, Gold, with his ankle wrapped in semi-comfort, limped down to a pay phone in the hall. There was also a chair that he gratefully flopped in, then pondered who to call.

He never called Jefferson, Jefferson always contacted him. It was easier that way because you never knew who you'd get in that big house in the woods. If the former hatter approached Gold, then everything was okay, but the few times Gold approached him, at least twice he acted like he didn't know him and once he forgot who he was halfway through a conversation.

Jefferson was out, unfortunately.

Gold had memorized Archie's office number, because he'd given him a card in the first year and said to give him a call if he ever wanted to talk about everything that happened. That wouldn't be very useful since it was almost eight-thirty at night and surely he was home with his dog Pongo by now. Ruby didn't have a car and, again, she would be halfway to drunk and in bed with someone at this point in the evening. That left two options, the first being if one of the ambulance drivers or nurses would mind taking him home, or calling Lacey French's home number.

Gold forgot where he'd learned it. Probably some paperwork in her office. He tried not to linger there for two long but sometimes he tidied up, and she had an easy to memorize number for some reason. The best outcome was she or Dove would take him back to the shop, and the worse was that she didn't.

Probably the worst, anyway...

* * *

Lacey had just finished her first whiskey. She was reaching for the bottle to pour a second, The Time Machine open on her lap, when her phone rang.

The phone never rang at night, ever. Nobody _dared_ poke the beast at after dark. She gawked so long that she had to hop up and do an undignified dash to the landline to answer it before the caller hung up.

"This is Ms. French," she said, not quite willing to rule out a wrong number call.

There was a long enough pause that she suspected her hunch was right until a hesitant voice said, _"Um, i-it's Mr. Gold, ma'am?"_

"Gold?" Lacey blinked. "What's wrong? Is the shop on fire?"

_"No, why?"_

"Because that's what I thought it would take for you to call anyone. So what's wrong?"

Gold hesitated again, and Lacey thought she could hear him swallow thickly.

 _"I, uh, I'm at the hospital. I'm okay!"_ he was quick to reassure. _"I mean, I had a fall and I hurt my ankle, but I-I need a ride home, an' I don't know who else to call. C-could you send Mr. Dove or-"_

Lacey glanced at the clock. It was eight-thirty. Unless she needed somebody shaken down like Noddingham, Dove was off the clock. Besides, at this point in the evening, Sheriff Graham was likely off duty too, and her one whiskey wasn't going to impair her just yet. Mostly.

"I'll be there in fifteen minutes, hold on."

_"O-okay..."_

Lacey hung up first and hurried upstairs. She was not going out in her oversized blue flannel PJs, so she shimmied back into the dark red sweater and black skirt she'd worn earlier that day. She skipped her tights since she'd just be in the car, but grabbed her coat and hurried outside to the car. Her least sexy shoes, a pair of snow boots big enough for her to just step into, were on her feet as she pulled out the drive and headed into town.

She wondered what it said about Gold's life that he had no one else to call.

What did it say about her life that she had nothing better to do than come _when_ he called?

Truthfully, and perhaps with a bit of shame, Lacey couldn't remember how long his son had been dead. She couldn't even recall his name, exactly. She knew Gold talked a bit with Ruby, but he was male so that wasn't unusual. He also talked to Dr. Hopper, but again, Hopper was the most tolerable citizen in town despite his conscentious streak. There was Jefferson but, yes, Lacey wouldn't want to call him and risk facing whichever of his personalities picked up that phone. Nope. Gold was a very lonesome soul, very lonesome if his only choice was to tentatively ask _her_ for a ride.

She pulled up to the hospital and found Gold standing outside, wrapped in that worn coat and blue-and-gold scarf of his. The lights along the doors of the hospital sort of beamed on him from above, shadowing his face and creating this halo effect with his touseled hair. He limped up to the passenger side, leaning heavily on his cane. He'd hurt his ankle, he said, so Lacey supposed she should give him the day off Monday.

"Th-thank you ma'am," he said once he was inside, shutting the door.

"What happened?" Lacey asked, putting her Caddy in drive.

Gold shrugged, fiddling with the cane between his knees. "I slipped on a patch of ice. Stupid really. The sheriff gave me a ride to the hospital."

"Ah, Regina probably called him home," Lacey snorted.

Gold gave her a searching look. "Does he live with her?"

"Only at night. I don't know if Regina is some kind of sex goddess-nor do I wish to on that front,-or if she's got dirt on Graham, but I know he isn't very thrilled with their 'relationship', as it were. Yet, still they go at it on the regular."

Gold didn't say anything, just rolled the shaft of his cane between his palms.

After a moment, he asked, "So how was your evening going?"

Lacey laughed. "My evening? Nothing much, just sitting on the sofa reading H.G. Wells and drinking whiskey."

Gold eyes the steering wheel then. "Should...you be driving then?"

"Meh, maybe, maybe not. We'll see if I crash, won't we?"

It wasn't as funny as she thought it would be, that looked that crossed Gold's face as he pressed deeper into the seat. "Uh...'k-'kay? S-so, uh, The Time Machine or Dr. Moreau?"

"Pardon?"

"Which book were you reading? The Time Machine or Dr. Moreau?" he repeated. "What Wells book was it?"

"Oh. Um, The Time Machine. There's supposed to be a driving theme about the weak and childlike Eloi race and the guesome Morlocks representing wealthy and working classes, but I just really like the Time Traveller. He goes about deducing what became of the human race and evolves his theory as new facts come to light. Then he goes home for supper and heads back into the timestream and is never seen again. He's like a prototype for Doctor Who."

Gold hummed. "I think I prefer The Time Machine, too. The Dr. Moreau book scares me. Could you imagine being trapped on an islandfor years, with anthropomorphic animals that revert to wild beasts? I'd take my own life."

That was an unpleasant thought, both the prospect of being in such a situation and...something about the thought of that last bit. Something about a suicide reference slipping off of Gold's tongue made Lacey uneasy.

"Well, don't go out to sea. That's a good way to avoid any trouble."

At that, her passenger laughed a little. "True...those are the only Wells books I've read though. Is Journey to the Center of the Earth any good?"

"Any good? It's fabulous! That's _Verne_ , not Wells, though, but still. It's fantastic enough to keep one interested, and yet, it's realistic enough that it doesn't give you Gulliver's Travel vibes, y'know? I mean they follow a series of tunnels and caves to the center of the earth, that is plausible. To me at least. You've got a very ecclectic taste in reading material, what did I see you reading the other day, The Hardy Boys?"

"Aye. I don't think I'll finish out the series though. I don't understand, really, there's two of them, but they're somehow less intelligent than Nancy Drew on her own."

"Yes! My mother got me the first six Nancy Drew books for my first birthday in the states, and my god, she is brilliant! The only thing she needs Ned Nickerson and his burly schoolmates for is picking things up and chasing runaway villains."

"Her father is a lawyer, too, I imagine that comes in handy. Why does George have a boy's name, though? I mean, she's rather tomboyish, but ever other girl's name is so feminine in that series."

"Umm, I think in whatever story has the moonstones in it, there's a conversation about unusual names. Her parents were so certain that she was going to be a boy, they hadn't even picked out a girl's name. So they just went with it, which I find admirable. Names have power, you know."

Gold looked at her oddly, a peculiar little smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "Perhaps they do."

Lacey stopped at the one red light before they turned on to Main, and suddenly the shop was much too close. What a weird thought that was, because this was just supposed to be a drop-off. Right?

"So..." she paused, tapping the steering wheel. "What doctor looked after you? Whale?"

"Dr. Sacker."

"Lucky you, he's the sweet doctor."

"Sweet doctor?"

"Yeah," Lacey nodded, irritated that the light turned green. "Dr. Sacker's like a big teddy bear. He's sweet. Whale is good at his job, but he's a bit of an ass, and lord help you if you are under thirty with breasts."

Even in the dim light by passing streetlights, Lacey could see Gold turned bright red. It was cute, and he was so easy to embarrass. Oops. Manners Lacey, _use them._ Damn it.

"At least you didn't get Dr. Herbert," Lacey continued. "He's creepy. Like, Doctor Frankenstein creepy. He has a cat that I _swear to god_ looks like a raccoon and a fox had a disfigured baby and abandoned it in the woods, where he found it."

"Well...perhaps he's secretly Dr. Moreau," he chuckled. "Having survived the Puma Woman's attack and escaped his island, here lives in Storybrooke to continue his nefarious work on unsuspecting townsfolk."

Lacey glanced at him out the corner of her eye as she parked in front of Old World Books and Antiques. "You had better be joking Gold, I do not want to wake up to see some-some-Some bear and lemur monstrosity standing in my front yard!"

Gold turned in his seat, collecting his bag and cane. He looked Lacey in the eye and smiled.

"What is the law?"

"Get out of my car."

"Not to eat meat, that is the law." He continued, pressing a melodramatic hand over his heart and looking offended. "Are we not men?"

"Out I say!" she declared, trying very hard not to laugh. That wouldn't do at all, no, even though he was being an utterly charming idiot.

Gold just kept grinning, climbing out the car with his bag of yarn and his cane in hand. Lacey waited until he was inside the door before she drove back home. The heater was on full blast and she was wrapped in her warmest coat, but the car still felt just a little colder with only one person in it. And her house felt very empty when she changed back into her pajamas, and the Time Traveller couldn't hold her attention half as much as he had earlier that evening.

_**So, she went to bed with Johnny Walker instead, dreaming of soft brown eyes and shy smiles...** _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter XVII: Sheriff Graham begins probing into suspicious activity, and Jefferson DOES NOT approve...


	17. XVII. The Underground

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When we last left off, Graham took Gold to the hospital, making Regina suspicious of their spy, and Lacey gave her shopkeeper a lift home...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My muse is a vengeful spirit, so now I'm juggling three stories to combat my inner rage. It's working rather well, so enjoy the fruits of my labor. :)

On Monday morning, Graham had walked by Basil's favored spot outside the library sawing away "O Holy Night" on his violin. Christmas was coming and that usually gave people a monthly sense of generosity, especially if he played seasonal tunes. The sheriff dropped his usual guilt offering in Basil's case, and walked on, same as any other day.

But unlike most days, the police cruiser seemed unusually busy passing back and forth. And later in the afternoon, when Basil relocated to a spot in the park, he noticed Graham patrolling rather heavily in the area.

It could just be paranoia, but on a hunch, Basil moved a hundred yards down the path to sit on the edge of the frozen fountain and, lo and behold, Graham did in fact adjust his position accordingly. The good sheriff, it would seem, was tailing Basil. Although for what purpose, Basil couldn't tell yet.

The only laws Basil broke were vagrancy and loitering related ones, but that was hardly cause for stalking. The only thing that was different about his daily habits, really, was that he'd started working for Jefferson and Mr. Gold some time ago. That had been going on for...months, surely, but it wasn't illegal. Basil kept an eye on things, reported for a sandwich and a few packs of cigarettes, then holed up under the back porch of Gully's for the night. He was never sure what his employers were up to, but it wasn't murder or drug-trafficking, so Basil knew that Graham had no good reason to be tracking him.

And when it happened again on Tuesday, and Wednesday, Basil knew he needed to take a bit of precautionary measures.

First, he moved from Gully's on Thursday to a spot in an alley near the butcher. (It smelled better in the winter than it did in the summer, thank god.) Graham immediately stopped snooping around the waterfront locale, and Basil just hoped Smee didn't start. He'd buried about thirty-eight dollars in cash in a cleaned-out jam jar, and Basil would be pissed if that little rat-bastard stole it.

Secondly, Basil continued about his daily routine of busking and loitering. However, he did scrub his hands and face clean in The Rabbit Hole's restroom. He'd even tried to tidy up his hair a bit, but couldn't take too long for that because Leroy pounded on the door after awhile. Then, Basil slipped into Old World Books and Antiques half an hour before closing and picked up a cheap magazine. It was some sort of scandal sheet or other, but whom was dating whom wasn't Basil's biggest issue at the moment.

Gold was busy sweeping, and it was Ms. French sitting behind the counter. Basil's initial plan to hand Gold a note with his money for the magazine was out, and Ms. French was looking at him now. Hmm...

Basil walked up to the counter, presenting his magazine. Ms. French eyed it, then him, and smirked. "Didn't take you for a Hollywood gossip man, Mr. Baker."

"I need kindling for a fire. Everything outdoors is soaked from snow." Which wasn't a lie, and Basil full intended on burning this, which was why he hadn't purchased a real book.

Ms. French, for all her fearful reputation, knew how not to ask questions. She even gave a little nod of approval, ringing up the magazine. When she turned away a bit, Basil plucked the dirty scrap of paper out as he reached for his meager pocket money and let it flutter to the floor. There. And it looked like Gold hadn't swept here yet, even better. He counted out the money and handed it to Ms. French, then ducked out the store again. In less than five minutes, Sheriff Graham's cruiser rolled by him again, but Basil didn't feel as nervous now...

* * *

Rumpelstiltskin found a grubby note on the floor where Basil had stood at the counter. He swept it up in the dustpan and took it to the back to "dispose of" before he actually read it. His stomach flipped as soon as he read the hastily scrawled message, though: **_Sheriff following me, can't meet now._**

Oh...

_Oh shit._

While Rumpelstiltskin wasn't completely certain if Graham was Regina's slave in this world, he did know that the former huntsman was deeply in the mayor's pocket. It could mean nothing at all. But considering how many years they had been right under the Queen's nose, it was foolish to think she would never notice something. On a cosmic scale it was better Basil was being watched than Jefferson, because Jefferson had no calm when it came to the Queen, but still...

What would she do now?

For the rest of his day, Rumpelstiltskin fretted over the possibilities. By some miracle, he had yet to come face-to-face with Mayor Mills in all the time he'd lived here in Storybrooke. He usually ducked out of her way if he happened to see her in town, and she rarely ever stormed into the shop since those first days. There was a good chance she didn't remember him at all...right? Oh. Gods. Who was he kidding? Shit. _Shit. **Shit.**_

Ms. French didn't seem to notice his impending breakdown. She sat in the back sipping on tea and updating her ledgers after Basil left, then packed up and left at her usual time. It was probably for the best and Rumpelstiltskin was increasingly unsure of what to say to her.

The problem on that front was this: It had taken months and many misunderstandings to get Belle to warm up to Rumpelstiltskin, before she decided she'd had enough and sent him packing. In this world, under this curse, it was more like...more like a sort of long, slow build-up. Lacey French smiled at many people, teased many more, but when she looked at him it felt like she saw him.

Gods. It felt so good to be _seen_ he would have loved her for that alone.

That was the problem though, even though _he_ still loved her, Belle or Ms. French, _she_ would not love him once the curse broke. It was unsurprising that Rumpelstiltskin could be selfish, really. When you spend a lifetime losing everything, you want to keep what you have as long as you have it. Which was why he made the deal to protect his son in the first place, wasn't it? But once this curse broke, she'd want him out of her shop, out of her life, same as the old world.

Rumpelstiltskin stood in the center of his flat with his head spinning, too many negative thoughts competing for dominance in his skull. He was going to be sick.

_Shit!_

The next work day crawled by at a snail's pace. Ms. French was taking that same broken clock to Marco, same as she did every December, attempting to repair it for Christmas shopping though no one ever bought it, so it was returned to the back and, some how, broke again over the course of the year. Another of the positive reasons to break the damned curse, he supposed between fits of anxeity.

By the time the shop was closed, Rumpelstiltskin went out to Gully's in the snow, taking care not to slip on any sneaky ice patches, and stomped the snow off his shoes on the porch. Basil wasn't underneath it, nor was he already inside. (Jefferson had somehow made keys for the lock, and given each one a copy, but Rumpelstiltskin didn't want to know how he'd done it.) Apparently Graham was still trailing the man. This wasn't going to be a fun conversation to hold with Jefferson, at all, and he was still working out how to phrase things when the former hatter ducked inside, shivering from a sharp wind whistling through the door.

And when Jefferson finally noticed they were missing somebody, all that Rumpelstiltskin could blurt out was:

"Graham is watching him."

Which was precisely the wrong thing to say because Jefferson turned white and his eyes bugged out, his mouth gaping open and shut like a landlocked fish for a few long moments before finally rasping, "What?"

"I-I got a note, from Basil, h-he came to the shop, an' the sheriff is following him. He didn't want Graham to notice us so he can't meet-"

"How did this happen? This shouldn't have happened! They're both cursed, they live the same life over and over every day, week, month, year-This is impossible!" Jefferson began pacing back and forth, raking his fingers through his hair until it stood on end. "No, no, _no!_ If the Huntsman knows, then the Queen knows. How does she know? Why Basil?"

Rumpelstiltskin lipped his lips, trying to sit very still in case Jefferson grew...erratic.

"I-I had a run in with the sheriff-" he very nearly squeaked when the hatter whipped his head towards him. "S-Sunday, I slipped and Basil was making sure I wasn't hurt. G-graham pulled up an' Basil said take me to the hospital, s-so he did, but h-he was gone b-before I was finished. I d-dunno what-"

"I am not going back to Wonderland!" Jefferson snapped suddenly, eyes wild. "If Regina gets him to crack-I _will not_ lose my daughter again Gold!"

"SHUT UP!" Rumpelstiltskin shouted back, entirely unsure where the nerve came from.

Jefferson paused, and the former spinner to a shaky breath, trying not to faint.

"Jefferson, calm down." He began, keeping his voice low. "The Queen can't send you back to Wonderland, there's no magic in Storybrooke. If there were? Do you really think Snow White wouldn't be on fire most of the day? So we have to take a step back, and just calm. Down. _Now_."

Reluctantly, his accomplice sucked in a deep breath, and then gave a heavy sigh. He was still vibrating with tension, but thankfully, he wasn't shouting or pacing anymore. That was a good start. The hatter rubbed his hands over his face and made a noise you could only describe as a whine, suddenly looking more like he was about to cry. Rumpelstiltskin understood the feeling.

"I can't lose my Gracie again, I can't, I should never have left her in the first place, I can't lose her again," he shook his head. "I can't let Regina win. I _won't_."

Again, Rumpelstiltskin highly sympathized. There just...wasn't much he could do to fix this mess they found themselves in, now. Tapping his fingers on the countertop, his mind went to spinning but there was only one, sane, resolution to this problem.

"We need to stop poking into Regina's business, at least for now."

"No! How are we supposed to break this cur-"

"Jefferson, how much do you know about curse-casting and spell-weaving?" Rumpelstiltskin asked, feeling twice his age...however old that was now. "Because even I can tell that we two, and Basil, can't break this one. It was cast by Regina, somehow, someway, so that not one person in town is happy with their lot in life with no hope of changing it. But do you know what is conspicuously missing from this tale? Many, many people. My son is missing, and perhaps he could be gone forever. But there are still people missing, Robin Hood for example, and there is a man in town named Mr. Smee, but no Captain Hook. There is a Sherlock without a bloody Watson, and that means that there are big pieces missing that we don't have access to in order to solve this mystery. We need to take a step back, and let Her Majesty think nothing is out of the ordinary, and when everything dies down, we can start again."

Looking unusually young and vulnerable, Jefferson hesitated. "What if Regina doesn't quit? She's relentless when she feels threatened."

"From what I've heard, stubborn though she may be, patience is not her strong suit."

That made Jefferson smile a little. "Yeah...that's true."

"So it's settled then, we're taking a break? No...crazy ideas, or solo investigations, right?"

"No crazy ideas," Jefferson promised at length, nodding affirmatively. "It's settled."

In the face of that, they parted ways early that evening. Jefferson gave him a ride home, and Rumpelstiltskin went up to his flat and took a hot shower, (he'd never take indoor plumbing for granted,) and crawled into bed. Anxious little ants still gnawed at his insides all night, but he was able to get a few hours of fitful sleep nonetheless. His reassurances in Gully's were all aimed at soothing Jefferson's frayed nerves, to keep him from setting fire to the town hall or something...but they hadn't done enough for himself.

Rumpelstiltskin supposed he'd always be a coward at heart, but he truly hoped backing away was the best thing to do right now...

* * *

Jefferson had promised no crazy ideas.

And only that.

He hadn't agreed to _no solo investigations_ , so, what was keeping him from sneaking into Storybrooke Town Hall on this fine midnight with a flashlight and a camera? Jefferson-of-Storybrooke apparently had some interest in photography because he had a dark room for developing his own film, so he didn't have to worry about _Sneezy_ down at the pharmacy taking a gander at his evidence.

Later on, he figured, he could enlarge the blueprints to make copies. Yes, this was an excellent idea, no crazy. And therefore, abiding by the agreement he had with Gold.

(Belle might even be a little bit proud of him.)

Ordinarily, Jefferson might get offended by someone telling him to "calm down", however...Gold was a misplaced father too. Very much in the same boat, even if his son was almost grown. He understood...but he also wasn't Jefferson. Perhaps they would "take a step back", but Jefferson wasn't going to give up entirely. Hence this sneaky photography mission.

And it wasn't like the buildings in Storybrooke changed. They were as immobile and unchanging as the people, even more so as they were inanimate. Jefferson couldn't copy too many blueprints tonight, but he could come back later. There was an insecure window on the ground floor, and even without the hat, Jefferson was quite proficient at being a thief.

He slipped away into the night, making a note of which blueprints to come back for next. He'd done the town hall and the one city record floorplan of Regina's house. There was also the offices of her suck-up genie/mirror, The Mirror, and the police station. Next, he should check that library, and perhaps Belle's shop, and The Rabbit Hole. That had a very shifty name. Oh, and the hospital. He'd definitely have to get the blueprints to that massive building someday...

* * *

On the ward, you quickly learned that being _quiet_ was the best sort of thing you could do. The severe nurse didn't always need an excuse to lash out at you, but being _quiet_ was a good way to avoid unwanted troubles. So he swept the floors once a day and changed the bedding in empty cells no one used, and then went back to sitting in his room. _Quietly_. He wasn't sure, really, what he'd done to get stuck here, or even if he'd committed himself, but the nurse had made it clear, especially with the one patient, that no one left the ward, her private kingdom.

In fact, the other patient was never even released from her room...probably because she wasn't quiet. She was locked in there all day and night, and sometimes, you could hear her shouting and banging on the doors, usually in the wee hours of the morning when the nightly meds had worn off.

Sometimes pills were adminstered in a little paper cup, but if you didn't take them, then they were slipped into your food somehow. He was never quite sure how it worked. The mystery patient even got injections, some days.

Sometimes he fancied he was so doped up he'd never be able to tell. (That was probably why he wasn't sure what his name was, too, although the nurse smirkingly called him "Big Chief" sometimes.) Because he was so quiet, his medications were fewer and in lesser doses than whatever the woman locked behind the door at the very end of the hall was knocked out with. After breakfast, and the medications, you barely heard a peep out of that mystery patient until the aforementioned early mornings, before her first dosage of the day.

Some days, though, the mystery patient broke free of her malaise and started banging her fists on the doors and screaming, sometimes in a foreign tongue. She always demanded to be let out, always demanded to go free, always insisted that she didn't belong here. None of that was particularly odd in a mental ward, per se, but sometimes when the so-called Big Chief overheard the nurse taunting the woman,- _then where do you belong_?-he heard the girl admit she couldn't remember.

_**The inmates weren't running the asylum, but they were certainly all mad here...** _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter XVIII: In which the Huntsman does some hunting, and the results are not ideal...


	18. XVIII. Misstep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When we last left off, Graham starts snooping for Regina and everything goes topsy-turvy...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so, hurricane weather may prevent me from appearing for sometime. My grandparents are coming tomorrow to stay at our house until it clears, the power is likely to go out, my house will likely be secure but there's gonna be nasty weather--it'll be an adventure. See ya'll when I can!

Graham had a niggling feeling whenever he kept an eye on Basil Baker, his former superior. It wasn't right, and he didn't want to do it, but he still did. It might've been because of a suggestion Regina had made. He never could quite tell her "no", for some reason. Then again, old Basil was always one step from being completely around the bend, a half step if he ran out of cigarettes...maybe it was for the best.

It was March of 1992, some...time, Graham thought, since he first started keeping an eye on Basil. Christmas and Valentines Day came and went and St. Patrick's Day was around the corner. It was still freezing cold and the children in Mary-Margaret Blanchard's class were still seen wearing those colorful hats. Graham wasn't sure where they got those gifts, but they were beautifully made. Little Paige Grace's had the silhouette of a white bunny on the front, and Ginger Brewster's was patterend with pink-and-periwinkle stripes and a little yellow pom-pom on top. One boy had ended up, unfortunately, with a red-and-white striped hat that made him look like Waldo of "Where's Waldo"...

Basil didn't do anything unusual. In the morning he fiddled for the people headed into work or Granny's, he sometimes even went into Granny's to buy something cheap and hot to eat. Sometimes he stayed on the librarian street corner, sometimes he moved to the park or a different street. Graham never caught him stealing and he was definitely less sticky-fingered than Smee was, so he wasn't exactly a public nusiance.

On one of his overnight stays with Regina, she seemed inclined to agree when he mentioned it while he was getting gressed the next morning. Graham would finish out the week, he decided after awhile, and then go back to his usual rounds.

Still, Graham tried a new tactic and pretended to be on his usual rounds _right then_.

Surprisingly, Basil's first move after two days was to move into an alley on the waterfront. Sensing a lead, one morning while Basil was busy in front of the library, Graham investigated. Behind the long-closed Gully's Tackle 'n' Bait, beside Storybrooke's lower-class seafood establishment who's dumpster smelled like the death of Poseidon warmed over, and the dingy little liquor store that now sold most of the cheap bait in Storybrooke, (there was a fishermen's joke in there somewhere...) Gully's had a little porch surrounded by old trashcans and crates. Upon closer inspection, this was a sort of door to a little nook where Basil must sleep.

It was lined with blankets and cardboard, quite waterproof thanks to the awning overhead, and other than this lovely little location (for a vagrant,) Graham wasn't too sure why Basil chose this very spot to bed down.

Gully's was all boarded up, it had been closed since Basil was actually employed as town lawman as far as he knew. However...

Shining a light on the back doorknob, Graham noticed something odd. Scratches. Little nicks and scars in the old weathered metal, as though someone had tried to pick it. That was unusual, however, Graham recalled that Basil was a deft hand with a pick. One of the file cabinets used to stick it you shut it all the way and lock, so until they had it replaced, Basil had to jimmy it open every time one of them forgot about that.

The bank had the keys to Gully's since the business went under, so Graham picked it up the next day. He unlocked the door and stepped inside, and at first glance, everything was perfectly in order. The dust lay thick over everything and dust motes swirled in weak light spilling between the boarded windows, the inventory long gone but the shelves and counters and chairs abandoned.

But the floor was swept almost clean, compared to everything else...especially in the direction of what might have been the check-out counter to the left of the front door. There were some stools over there, looking, while dusty, cleaner than the others. The counter, too, looked like it had been used in recent times. Not in the past, say two or three months, but it had still been used. Graham began carefully scouring the counter and behind it for clues or connections to Basil outside, and he almost decided it was coincidence.

Then he found the single sheet of paper, lying face-down on the floor and dusted with filth. Abandoned.

Until now.

It looked like a sheet of homework, at first, a page from an essay. But it didn't make sense at all, and the crooked chickenscratch read out utter nonsense. The first few lines were numbered in a sort of list, and then there were notes underneath that so it read out:

    1. > _**1-The Queen's enemies of the old world are all severely punished, almost creatively so. Example: Red is a wolf in the sense of a rather provocative and flirtatious woman.**_

    2. > _**2-Prince Charming, (what is his name??) is in a coma, Snow White alone and friendless. Their famed love is powerless. Vindictive punishment, or precautionary measure?**_

    3. > _**3-Belle still holds a great deal of power and influence, though without magic. There is no magic in Storybrooke, no curses but the main one hold sway in this land.**_




The line that caught Graham's attention was the bit that went:

**_Not everyone is from the old world, some are from different lands. The Land Without Color, and other kingdoms around the Queen's primary targets, though not all persons are accountable. Why? Could they be found, or are they able to find us? Does one have the key to breaking the curse?_ **

It could be the ravings of a madman...but the use of Regina's name gave Graham pause. That was probably why he showed it to her later that afternoon without that usual little niggly feeling, uncompelled. He couldn't explain why Regina's eyes widened and her mouth pinched tightly, or why she turned blazing eyes on him and demanded to know where he found this and what connection it had to Basil Baker.

"It was on the floor in Gully's, that abandoned tackleshop on the docks? It looks like whoever was there left, but that sheet got left behind. It looks like nonsense to me-"

"Did he write this or not?" she snapped sharply.

"No," Graham answered automatically. "It's not his handwriting."

"You're _sure_?"

"Of course. He was a fastidious note-taker at the station, I'd recognize his signature anywhere."

Things got just a tad fuzzy after Regina nodded and dismissed him. The next thing Graham properly remembered was leaving her office and climbing into his car, only it was much later than he thought. It had gotten dark between the time he entered the office and the time he left. Had time flown by...or what?

* * *

The next afternoon, an oblivious Rumpelstiltskin had been flipping through the third installment in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. It was an odd little series, completely mad in fact, starting with the cover, plainly declaring this novel as **Mostly Harmless** in large white letters, with smaller yellow letters adding _'The fifth in the increasingly inaccurately named Hitchhikers trilogy'_ underneath it. It had arrived early this March, although how new books arrived in an isolated town was a mystery that eluded Rumpelstiltskin's comphrehension.

He was going to purchase his own copy, he had decided, when suddenly there was the thump of a body hitting the hardwood floors and a curse from the normally eloquent Ms. French's lips.

The box of new books, from which he got this book in his hands, lay in the middle of her path, and she had clearly tripped over it somehow. A handful of mail lay scattered on the floor, indicating she hadn't been looking where she was going. Oh shit.

"Oh, oh gods!" he bent down as his small employer hissed, clasping her left ankle. "Are you alright?"

"No! I'm wearing three-inch heels, what the hell makes you think I'm okay tripping in these things?!"

She was alright...mostly.

"What can I do?" he asked, watching anxiously as she peeled off the offending shoes. Already she looked smaller, lying there bundled in her coat with just her stocking feet. As long as it wasn't broken, he could probably take care of her alright.

"I need to get off the floor, for one thing," she grunted, looking for a moment like she was going to do it herself before Rumpelstiltskin got to his feet and gave her the hand not grasping his cane.

With eyes that screamed _'only because I have to'_ , Ms. French caught his hand in hers and pulled herself up, favoring her uninjured right side. This worked out well, because with a little shuffling, Rumpelstiltskin could loop his left arm around her and she could lean against his stronger side. Somehow he kept them upright leaning on his wooden cane as they both hobbled to the back room, a truly ridiculous spectacle, surely.

Ms. French's "office" was not a place Rumpelstiltskin wandered often. In fact, he had strict orders to only sweep up and, in her own words, "Keep your crooked nose out of my business, if you please." Still, he knew there was that big, soft armchair with a little foot stool that suited this situation perfectly, and he had her seated and her injured foot elevated quickly.

"I should get an ice pack," he said, to no one in particular. "Is there anything I can get you?"

Ms. French looked at him like he had personally shoved her down a flight of stairs and was the cause of her injury. She folded her arms sullenly, looking towards the little space she kept her hotplate and tea kettle. Many a time Rumpelstiltskin heard her making a pot of tea and longed for the old days when they could sit and drink together, perhaps not happily, but comfortably.

"Just put the kettle on."

Which he did, letting the water heat while he went upstairs to his apartment to fetch a bag of frozen peas. He'd read somewhere they were good for ice packs, and as a matter of fact, they did wonders for his ankle when it was sore and painful. He grabbed a towel, too, to place over her ankle. Ms. French wasn't barefoot, but her sheer black stockings were little protection against a frozen plastic bag.

By the time he got that placed on her foot, not quite daring to say a word besides, _"Is this okay?"_ and recieving a curt _"fine"_ as a response, the kettle whistled. There were three different teas, in those stupid little bags of wet shredded leaves that tasted awful, and he hesitantly chose the one labeled Earl Grey. Just as he'd had the tea made, Ms. French added: "You might as well get yourself a cup. They're in the cabinet down there, right in front of you. And while you're add it, grab that bottle and pour some in my tea, would you?"

Rumpelstiltskin obediently crouched and opened the cabinet door. He plucked out a cup that was really more of a coffee mug, green with speckles of white, and intended to grab the plain white mug beside it when something familiar caught his eye at the back of the cabinet.

_His cup._

The cup he'd dropped on his first day in the Dark Castle, the white porcelain with the simple dark blue pattern, almost floral, with the gilded handle. The chip was there, in the rim, really it was more than chipped but it still held tea well. The last time he'd seen it had been before that purple fog...

"Where did you get this?"

"Mm? Oh, that thing?" Ms. French hummed. "I dunno. It's broken, just get another cup."

"No, it's just chipped."

Ms. French cocked her brow, but she said nothing but, "Whatever. I'm not drinking out of it."

"Of course."

Rumpelstiltskin levered himself upright and poured the tea into two cups. One was his chipped cup, the other one was a pretty little cup decorated with pink roses. Into these went the tea, and he found the little plastic cups of creamer and a bowl of sugar cubes, preparing Ms. French's tea in the usual way he'd have made Belle's. He moved to hand her the cup when she pointed to the cabinet again impatiently.

"You forgot something."

Frowning, he looked back inside the cabinet. There were cups and mugs, of course. And a tea towel and some paper napkins...oh. That bottle. He pulled out a half-empty bottle of amber-colored liquor with a label that read _'Jim Bean'_ on the front, which Ms. French reached out for.

"That's the one, gimme."

Automatically, Rumpelstiltskin obeyed, watching her pour a rather sizable shot of liquor into her cup and sitting the bottle on a nearby table. The sight brought back unfortunate memories of one particular evening with a drunken Belle whimpering on the floor in a pitiable ball, and he recalled a few reports of Basil's that had mentioned frequent purchses of liquor on Ms. French's part.

He had been staring for too long, she was starting to stare back. As if daring him to say something.

Which he didn't, of course.

He just sipped his tea from his chipped cup, feeling transported back to the awkward days of the Dark Castle all over again. And not in a very good way. But at least he knew what to do this time.

* * *

Basil was surprised when Graham suddenly stopped stalking him. After two days, he cautiously moved back into his beloved nook behind Gully's, though he hadn't alerted Gold nor Jefferson yet. The latter was seen in odd places around town, but his general demeanor had always been odd, so Basil paid little mind to that expect to take a note of his current position.

And everything was fine...and then not three days after he moved back, late in the afternoon, when Basil was slipping into the alley, he somehow missed the police cruiser gliding up into the street.

He remembered being dragged out and thrown into the back of the cruiser, handcuffed, but he wasn't entirely sure what happened after that because he couldn't quite get upright where he was slung over the back seat, and the door opened near his head. A big, heavy hand grabbed him and a needle stabbed into his neck, making everything go woozy so that he couldn't tell where they took him when he was hauled out...

When he came to, he was lying on a thin mattress, and from somewhere in the room, there was a soft grating sound.

A _grate_ , as it turned out, when he lifted his head up.

At the grate were dark eyes belonging to the mayor, and Basil could almost see her smirking just from those eyes alone.

"Now, this is a simple sort of exchange Mr. Baker," she said smoothly. "There's a misunderstanding here, what, with your being locked up here for mental illness. Fortunately, as mayor, I can correct this problem, but only if you tell me who is looking for the Queen and what they know about...a curse?"

Basil wasn't stupid. Far from it, in fact. This was extortion, and his options were not nearly as simple as the mayor would have him believe. If he did play along, and if he did say what little he knew about what went on in Gully's, (which was mostly his reporting daily events of little importance to Gold and Jefferson, who gave him a sandwich and some cigarettes before he tottered off for the evening to let them write whatever it was they wrote,) then he _might_ be free to go. Or more likely...not at all.

In fact, there was very little Basil had to gain by selling out. Mayor Mills forgot that she, (and he knew _she_ did it,) was responsible for his homelessness to start off with. Not only that, but his best case scenario was being returned to the streets without incident to scrape out his continual existence until one night he finally froze to death or caught some horrible disease and died in a gutter.

But, if he _didn't_ play along...

Well, _Basil wasn't stupid_ , and this wasn't an ideal situation either. He had limited contact with his "employers", and of the pair, Gold was really the only credible one who would notice he was missing. And that might not be for weeks. Months. And if Mayor Mills really wanted to lock him up in an asylum (Storybrooke didn't have a psych ward...did it?) then he would die in here. Or go mad. Or both.

Only there was one common factor in both cases, however: He had no idea what she was talking about.

And so he said, "I don't know what you're talking about."

Mayor Mills clucked behind the door, shaking her head. "Oh, now, I don't believe you're ignorant about this. You must no something. You have nothing to fear from the truth, that's all I'm after."

"The truth? Is that all, honestly, Madam Mayor?"

"Yes."

"Very well," Basil stood up, brushing down his coat and raking a hand through his messy black hair. His hat had gotten lost somewhere along the way, otherwise he would have taken it off at this moment. "The truth I shall tell: You're a liar and a cheat, you've no moral code and resort to anything-goes tactics that reek of desperation, possibly over past regrets, and have no small amount of pride and vanity, not the least of which includes promoting Graham to the position of Sheriff after outing me and conducting a salacious affair that isn't half as secret as you would like it to be-"

"That's enough!" she barked, the false smile falling away, anger blazing in its place. "Fine! Let's see how well you hold up here for a few weeks! If you're still so chipper, at least I'll know I've put you in the right place!"

The grate slammed shut, and Basil swallowed.

He was quite possibly doomed...

_**But at least he'd gotten a good set of last words in.** _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter XIV: Gold and Jefferson notice something, Jefferson notices something else, and Lacey is most certainly not jealous...


	19. XIX. Wait...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When we last left off, Regina captured Basil in the asylum, and Gold finds a chipped teacup that makes him wonder...

Both Rumpelstiltskin and Jefferson, (at least as far as the spinner knew,) had continued about their quiet, daily lives until Basil would come to them and say Graham wasn't on the alert anymore. They assumed it would take a few months...but, as Rumpelstiltskin turned his calendar from May to June...he realized it had been months since anyone had seen Basil.

It wasn't unusual in the winter to not see Basil, because he was holing up somewhere warm and sheltered. But it was a warm, pleasant summer. Usually Basil would be playing "concerts" in the park now, making pretty good money too. That meant that something wasn't right.

Something was very wrong.

It took him nearly a week, fretting over possibilities and worrying that the Queen was on to them while wondering how to contact Jefferson as he'd never quite learned his phone number, before he saw Jefferson walking into Dark Star Pharmacy. Rumpelstiltskin darted in after him and sidled up to the man while he was eyeing rolls of film for sale. He'd startled Jefferson a little bit, because he jumped and said, "Holy _shit_ Gold! Don't sneak up on me like that!"

"Sorry," Rumpelstiltskin smiled, more nervous than genuinely pleased. At least Jefferson was (mostly) stable in his personality now. "Have you seen Basil around?"

Jefferson frowned. "No...why?"

"Well, don't you think it's odd that he hasn't been seen around town? I know he was going to lay low, but..."

"Shit."

"Precisely."

"Shit, shit, shit, and nobody's noticed because they figure he skipped town I'll bet," Jefferson muttered, getting agitated. "Shit!"

"My thoughts exactly. We need to talk, don't we?"

"Yeah, yeah...okay, go to The Rabbit Hole tonight."

"What?"

Jefferson shrugged. "Hide in plain sight. Besides, I'm gonna need a drink to deal with this shit."

* * *

Lacey was in an odd mood lately, and she couldn't bloody explain the damn thing.

No, that wasn't true, exactly. In a way she could sum it all up in a single, stupid, meaningless, pointless, infuriating word: **Gold.**

Meaning, of course, Mr. R. Gold, her shopkeeper, who had either lost his damn mind or she was slowly losing hers. Maybe the building had lead waterpipes and it was starting to catch up to them. That was a helluva lot more logical than the alternative choices, because, Gold had never before taken tea in the afternoons with her, and she wasn't sure if she said something to invite him or not.

He sat in her rolling desk chair while she took her cozy armchair, usually sipping from that broken teacup she had in the back of her cabinet. Well, it was at the _front_ now since he always used it. He washed the cups upstairs in his apartment, which was probably more sanitary than the rinse in the bathroom sink Lacey had been giving her cups, when they finished and returned them in the morning before she got to work. And when he finished his cup, he set it aside and went back to the counter, without lingering or touching her, or anything that would send up red alarms.

If she _really_ thought about it, this new part of their routine began when she sprained her ankle and had to be half-dragged behind to the back room. Gold had darted around and before she knew it there was a cold compress on her ankle and a hot cup of tea in her hands, spiked with bourbon whiskey to take her mind off this stupid mistake. Her ankle hadn't swollen up as much as she thought it would, probably due to Gold's diligence, which...inexplicable annoyed her.

Which was insanity, because Gold had been nothing but gentle and courteous. (He usually was...) No, it wasn't annoyance. Maybe...discomfort? But not because Gold took any liberties, because his hands hadn't wandered farther than they should have for putting a towel and ice pack on her ankle.

No, if there was discomfort, it was because Lacey wasn't used to being taken care of. Before she had been labelled as the devil incarnate, Lacey always had to look after herself. Her father wasn't exactly neglecting, he was just a...supremely distracted and hands-off parent, once her mother had died. In general, when people wanted to do things for Lacey, it was because they wanted a free favor.

Gold just stood there sipping tea once she invited him to, not mentioning the liquor in her cup, (which he had made exactly to her tastes, damn him,) and quietly going back to restocking when he finished. He'd even asked if she wanted a pair of his slippers to get to her car since she couldn't very well use her towering heels with a bum ankle.

She had rather stupidly refused and walked in her stockings to the car. The hot soaking she gave her feet that night was just as much to thaw them out as it was to ease her sprained joint.

Maybe it would be easier if he wanted something. As far as Lacey could tell, though, Gold's intentions were solely to have a cup of tea. She had asked him a book related question once and so, _of course_ , they started debating literature. There was also tales about antiques, and when Lacey started complaining about a few broken items, she saw Gold talking to Marco and reading an antique restoration book. Next thing she knew, one of the clocks on her workbench was repaired and Gold was winding it to the proper time with a self-satisfied smile.

Confidence looked good on Gold, and it irked Lacey to think that because love, as she had thought she'd established in her moral code already, was a waste of her time and resources. Not that she loved him. But she...was... _fond_ , of him. For some reason. Probably his mind, more so than his gaunt, angular face and scrawny little body. Lacey liked a buff man as much as the next girl, but she was very much into brains over brawns. The fact that Gold was small and timid like a puppy probably didn't hurt. He was cute.

Not that she'd ever entertain further thoughts, of course.

And if she enjoyed wearing fluttering short skirts or snug little pencil skirts with bare legs during these rare warm summer days in Maine, that was her business. Especially if she caught Gold pointedly NOT looking her way.

Closing up the shop tonight, Lacey collected her things and was walking towards the door. Gold locked up, as usual, but he was on the outside of the door. The unnaturalness of that from her homebody shopkeeper prompted Lacey to ask the occassion.

"Oh," he shifted his weight to his good side. "I'm meeting somebody down at the Rabbit Hole."

Lacey felt the slight sting of jealousy under her heart, which was utterly irrational, so she just smiled a berry-glossed smile. "Well, don't stay out too late."

He smiled slightly back. "Yes ma'am."

 _'Oh, screw him and his smile,'_ she ground her teeth, spinning around and walking briskly to her car. She would do her drinking at home, after a stop at the liquor store, so she didn't have to watch the hopelessly awkward man try to function through a date without embarrassing himself...or Lacey having to jack some bitch's rent through the roof...

* * *

The medications forced down Basil's throat made him muddied and stupid. Once in a blue moon, usually if he'd displeased the severe nurse with the rolled brown hair and starched white uniform, he'd be given a jab of a needle that either made him jittery or knocked him out cold. There was a hard-faced orderly that looked like a shaved mountain gorilla and wasn't half as gentle, capable forcing your jaws open to take the pills and holding you under the cold spray of water in the concrete shower stall until you were sure you'd frozen.

Unfortunately for Mayor Mills, who had been down two times to see him, torture hadn't worked on Basil. He wouldn't give her the satisfaction of winning...even though he could acknowledge this was a terrible situation.

The first visit had been shortly after Basil's imprisonment. Perhaps a week? It was hard to keep track of the days when he was drugged, and he only had a tiny, barred, frosted-glass window at the top of his cell for weak light. When it was obvious nothing had changed, the cold showers and withheld meals and an increase in medications began. Her second visit was much the same as the first, and apparently she had let him rot a bit longer down here.

Still, while Basil wasn't with Stockholm Syndrome yet, it should be acknowledged that he wasn't the worst-treated patient.

He was brought out of his cell to "shower", and occasionally allowed to shave. Mostly because the nurse dislike how his stubble grew in patchily, like a dark rash rather than a genuine beard. Sometimes she had the orderly hold him down while she came at him with a straight-razor, and that was its own kind of punishment because she tended to "accidentally" nick his cheekbones and jawline.

The large, tan man with the long dark hair and broad shoulders looked like he should be an orderly, but he was a silent patient. Some sort of mute, Basil assumed when he could think straight enough to, well, think. He was utterly tame, and the nurse delegated the changing of linens and cleaning of the halls to him. He was broken long ago, Basil figured sadly.

And then there was the shrieking girl at the back of the corridor, where you'd turn off when they took you to be showered. There was a different door, too, that Basil assumed was a storeroom for supplies.

The poor girl was given more meds than anyone on the ward, utterly silent until the wee hours of the morning when she started screaming until she was either hoarse, or the nurse and orderly shut her up. Sometimes she avoided her medications, which would lead to fits in the daytime. If anyone was in the running for a shock treatment or lobotomy, it would be her, and Basil wondered if she was insane...or if she'd been driven insane because she'd crossed Mayor Mills too.

They should have been deeper than underneath the hospital.

Because they were in hell down here.

* * *

The Rabbit Hole never changed...though in the establishment's defense, Rumpelstiltskin supposed, it had that sticky-tabled, beer-washed quality that most shabby pubs carried with them that ensured the atmosphere rarely changed for the better. The off-work crowd was shuffling in around him. Leroy almost knocked him down because apparently he hadn't been moving fast enough, and while the dwarf-turned-human was shorter, he certainly wasn't as slight.

"Hey watch it!" he growled irritably, stomping over to the bar.

"Pardon me," Rumpelstiltskin muttered, edging out the flow of traffic to a quiet table to the side. Within thirty minutes, Jefferson slipped across from him wearing a purple silk shirt and a black leather waistcoat, and a fine scarf knotted around his scarred throat.

He tipped an invisible hat to the spinner and then signaled to the waitress wearing a tight black shirt cut to show off her pierced navel. She was the same waitress that always shot Rumpelstiltskin a dirty look when he ordered a glass of water, and did so now, especially when Jefferson ordered a draft beer. Once the girl walked off, Jefferson leaned forward, his face deathly serious.

"I scouted out the alleys. The only homeless man I found was Smee, and he said he hadn't seen Basil in ages."

A clinical part of Rumpelstiltskin wondered what would happen to the townsfolk's memories of Basil if they noticed his disappearance. Would they every acknowledge it? Would they think he left town? Would the curse adapt to erase the missing component from memory? Within six months, no one remembered the Flynn father and son pair that had been chased out of town. What would happen to "Gold", who no one noticed unless they had a direct interaction with him, if he took sick for a week?

"So some time between March and June..." he thought aloud. "Basil was taken off the street without a trace."

"His stuff is still at Gully's, but it hasn't been touched in weeks. At least. It's ruined. I did find a jar full of cash buried under there, so that assures me Smee had nothing to do with it."

Rumpelstiltskin nodded. "Smee is a follower. He wouldn't do anything without commands, so he's out. The only thing I can think of is that the sheriff is involved. In the winter, he always brings Basil in when it gets too cold, doesn't he? Who would notice if he were arrested?"

Jefferson scowled, waiting until the waitress brought their drinks over to drum his fingers on the tabletop.

"You know what I think? I think it's Regina-don't roll your eyes,-listen, listen," he held up his hands. "In the old world, the Huntsman's heart had been removed by the Evil Queen. He was her spy, her obedient soldier, her best, well, hunter. And his heart wasn't returned. So it's entirely possible Regina has some kind of power over him still, right?"

"I suppose...I don't know much about hearts. Er, magically speaking."

At least in a practical sense. Because Rumpelstiltskin would never forget how the Queen had ripped out his heart in the Great Room and sneered at him. Or how Belle had brought him back from the edge of a breakdown and gently put it back in place...

"What did she do?"

"Pardon?" Rumpelstiltskin blinked, wondering what Jefferson just asked.

The hatter smirked, making a circular pointing motion with his finger. "Belle. What did she do? That's your Belle-Face."

"My what?"

"Your Belle-Face. It's the face you make when you're thinking about your lady-love. Or as I like to call it, the, 'Helplessly pining for my unattainable mistress who I don't know really likes me back' look you get."

Rumpelstiltskin felt his face heat, no matter what expression he wore. "I'm not pining."

"You are pining. Mooning. Yearning. Longing. Lovestruck. Infatuated. Enamored. Besotted. Twitterpitted."

"Twitter-what-now?"

"You and Belle, sittin' in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G," Jefferson sang in a juvenile fashion. On the one hand it was nice to see the younger man in better spirits. On the other...

"Did you forget the part where she all put pushed me out the door after we K-I-S-S-E-D?" he rolled his eyes.

"Well you and her can sort that out when everything else is sorted. Don't you two ever talk?"

"What was there to talk about? Then, I was her servant, now, I'm a shopkeeper with a rental agreement. Praytell, what was there to talk about?"

"Let's see, you could talk about how it was the greatest kiss of your life and you love her without a shadow of a doubt. Just to get the ball rolling."

Rumpelstiltskin would point out that he had very few kisses to compare that one ill-fated kiss with Belle...but Jefferson was right in it being the best kiss of his terrible life. And...and he did love Belle. He felt for her like he had never felt before. It was...it was complicated, and easy, and amazing, and terrifying, and soft, and burning, and...

"The curse has to break first," he demurred. "Then we'll have to wait and see."

_**Jefferson grinned madly.** _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter XX: Jefferson makes another discovery in the hospital, and Lacey falls in a bad mood...


	20. XX. Much Muchness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When we last left off, Jefferson and Gold realized Basil was missing, and Lacey is still in denial...

"You're going to cut your lip."

"I'll be careful."

"I am not taking you to the hospital during work hours because you nicked your mouth on a teacup, Gold."

"Then you won't have to, Miss French," he grinned widely after taking a sip, running his tongue over his unharmed lip. Lacey had noticed a little scar on his upper lip before, though it was there long before the teacup became his favorite vessel for drinking tea out of in the afternoons. "See?"

Lacey sniffed and twisted away in her office chair, pretending to go over the ledgers so she didn't end up giggling. Gold made her want to giggle, and that just wouldn't do, Lacey French had a reputation to uphold.

Even, or especially, when her shopkeeper was being cute.

Despite their impromtu afternoon cuppa becoming a regular event every afternoon, Lacey still tried to stay in her state of forced denial. She tried not to care that Gold prepared her tea the way she liked it, not leaving her to fix it herself or doing it the way he liked. She tried not to care that he was shockingly witty and had a wicked sense of humor, the sort of morbid kind her own tastes ran along. She tried not to care he sometimes brought down a handful of biscuits (they were biscuits, you bloody Americans,) he'd made upstairs to go with their tea, and that she'd started enjoying a bite of shortbread more than the bite of bourbon in her cup.

It wasn't fairly, simply put: He was sweet, kind, considerate, intelligent, he could cook, he had the most gorgeous brown eyes, (Lacey never knew she had a thing for men with long eyelashes before,) and he was basically an indentured manservant in her service.

It had seemed like a good investment to buy Old World Books from Gold when he was struggling to make his loan payments. True, he'd always made them, but Lacey didn't like how thin and weary he was starting to look. He was pinching pennies until they squealed and still skipping meals to make ends meet. She worked out a deal wherein he could keep his job and home above the shop while working off his loan, and with a scarcity of jobs for crippled fifty-year-old men in Storybrooke, he'd just never had a reason to leave.

And it scared Lacey to think that she had trapped him in this town, where his son had died, through money.

Looking at it that way, why was he so...sweet, to her? Why so gentle, and warm, and prone to making her want to wrap him in a blanket and take him home? That just wouldn't go at all.

So she continued to take tea in her office with Gold, curled up in her arm chair of office chair, while he leaned against the counter. A compromise; Time spent with him, but in a meaningless way.

Gold had finished his tea by then, rinsing out the cup and leaving it to sit upside down on a tea towel. He flashed her a croked smile and limped back to the front, his cane thumping against the floorboards. Lacey watched him go, sneaking a peek at his nice bum for just a moment before huffing and tossing her pen down.

She grabbed for the desk drawer she'd been keeping her liquor and took a long pull of bourbon.

Lacey had cut back on some of her drinking. She was what her father would have laughingly called a "sipper", she took a nip here and there through the day, as opposed to sitting down to a full cup. Usually she just spiked her coffee in the morning, a bit of something infrequently in her tea, and usually one glass stretched over a few hours in the evening. The shots in her tea were largely cut out now, because she couldn't stand the knowing way Gold looked at her when she did it. Like he knew why she did it, when even Lacey didn't know, and understood it with a resignation that that was just how she was. A drunk. So she'd resorted to this little flask and taking a drink only once or twice a day, and usually when she was terribly distracted by these...feelings.

However, on occasion, Lacey did go home and get absolutely plastered because her life was so damn boring sometimes: Get up, go to work, make a grown man cry and scream like fussy toddlers, get what she wanted, collect rent and loan payments once a month, balance the books, go home, rinse and repeat.

And sometimes, like now, with Christmas less than a week away, Lacey also just needed to make the ghost of her parents and her once-content childhood to die away...

* * *

Basil was completely MIA, and Jefferson had scoured the town for three and some years before admitting defeat. He'd even checked the woods without success. Their friend was likely dead now. And it made Jefferson angry and sad and generally terrified of what that might mean.

If Gold's theory was true, then Graham was a walking nightmare for them; Regina's henchman and watchdog, from which he could hide nothing, whatever he saw potentially got back to Regina. It also meant the poor man had no idea he was likely a murderer. Though given their saftey hinged on his autonomy, Jefferson could only be so sympathetic.

December of 1996 was not a good time for Jefferson. It was going on fourteen calendar years since this curse struck. He'd been separated from his Gracie for nearly seventeen years.

_Seventeen years._

Grace should have been a beautiful 27-year-old woman, either married or besieged with suitors Jefferson had to fend off with a stick. Perhaps she'd have a little one of her own. He could be a grandfather, or at the very least, seen his little girl happily married like Jefferson had been wed to her mother. Instead? She was Paige Grace, an eternal child stuck in the fourth grade, and the only time he could speak to her was in the vaguest of terms or when complimenting the knitwear Gold produced each Christmas, or someone would cry "pedophile" and take even that meager joy away from him.

Thoughts of vengeance and what the townsfolk would do to the Queen when the curse broke were what kept Jefferson sane, as bizarre as that sounded. That and Gold, who had a calming way of talking to him like one might soothe a wounded animal. Jefferson really hoped they found out what happened to Gold's boy, because there was little more painful than a parent separated from their child.

Unfortunately, they'd hit a block earlier this year. Almost everyone with a fictional equivalent had been catalogued in a notebook, every parallel and every similarity listed. They'd followed every lead to the bitter end, and now they were out of clues.

They'd assembled a puzzle with missing pieces.

Jefferson's...clandestine missions had hit a wall too. He'd photographed all town records he could find. And he'd even broken into Regina's office and rifled through her cabinets. The last set of folders were what he was after tonight, and he really hoped he didn't stumble across Graham's heart in the process.

Well if he did, he could return it, which was good. But on the other hand, the whole magic-glowy-out-of-body-heart thing always gave him the heebie-jeebies.

Her Majesty never locked her office door when she went to lunch. She locked her house, and her car, but never the office door. It was easy for Jefferson to slip in one day while she was out and leave the window unlocked. Cleaning came in on Tuesday and Saturday, no one noticed the unlocked window before then. And, not to brag on himself, but Jefferson was a brilliant burglar.

Jefferson climbed through the window and put a pair of clean, dry plastic shopping bags over his muddy slush-covered shoes before standing on the floor. He tugged on a pair of clean white gloves and went over to the filing cabinet. The tumblers were easy to pick, and the drawer slid open easily in a few moments.

He spread everything on the floor as he photographed it, taking two or three snapshots of each item of interest. Jefferson focused on an old map outlining a series of tunnels, and another map showing a bisected view of the town and the tunnel network underneath it. Storybrooke, according to the curse, was once a mining town that had long since shut down a decade ago. (From whatever year it was at the time, of course.) That explained why there were so many tunnels and mines around, and also accounted for a number of fabricated woes. Jefferson's cursed memories placed Leroy and a few other men around town as having expected to be working the mines their entire lives, so they'd dropped out of high school and started at an entry-level position, which was fine until the mines dried up and they were left fighting for odd jobs.

The curse was designed, as far as they could tell, to take away happy endings from everyone. Every family had an issue, every couple had some bump, every person had some misfortune, all of which kept them in a constant state of unhappiness. Regina was famously spiteful like that.

Jefferson stopped in mid-thought as he unrolled a small set of blueprints.

He'd already found the hospital's plans and photographed them. He'd already scoured the hospital from top to bottom, he'd thought. But then again, he thought he'd found all the blueprints and files on record before realizing Regina, who loved a secret hiding place, would keep some things close to her chest.

In this case, that would be a second set of blueprints...with a secret underground floor.

Gold wouldn't want to investigate, Jefferson knew that. His friend was all about research, theorizing, postulating a plan. But really, he was too terrified of Regina to draw any attention to himself, and his ankle kept him from being very nimble. Besides, right now, Gold was still operating under "let's not do anything crazy" assumptions, which Jefferson was about to _gleefully_ ignore.

He had stolen a set of white scrubs from the hospital a few years back. They were a little scratchy on his skin, but it looked convincing enough that nobody gave him a second thought. Especially since Leroy was the only real person wandering around the place at night, mopping the floors. And quite honestly, Leroy couldn't give a damn about much.

Jefferson surprisingly didn't have much trouble with the secret door. It looked like an emergency exit, and it was locked. The only people with the keys were a hard-faced nurse who had a permanent scowl, a massive orderly that looked like a human bulldog, and the mayor. However, of the three, the orderly was the least observant. It was the work of moments to lift the key off a ring on his belt when he came up for coffee, press it into a mold, and drop it on the ground for him to find again.

Yes sir, he was a damn fine burglar.

Once Jefferson had his key made, he donned his stolen scrubs and slipped downstairs late one night. The nurse wasn't on duty at the time, (which was lucky because Jefferson wasn't sure what he was going to tell her anyway, come to think of it, oops,) so no one stopped Jefferson from snooping around in the corridors. This secret lower floor was cold and smelled like mildew. Like a basement...

Or a dungeon.

At the end of the corridor, there was a door with a frosted glass panel at the top. Peeking in there, Jefferson just found rolls of bandages, pill bottles, syringes, linens, pillows, supplies like that. Further down the turn in the hall was a small room with two shower cubicles. And no curtains. There was a little sink and a toilet half hidden by a wall for a modicum of privacy, and a mirror above the sink. For some reason, Jefferson suspected it wasn't a pleasant business attending to one's personal grooming and hygiene here...

He heard a voice, then, female. And then a weak sort of noise, like-

_**Bang-bang!** _

Jefferson hurried back to the cellblock. The last room before you turned to the showers, that's where the noise was coming from. A woman shouted at the top of her lungs, "Let me out! Let me out! I don't belong here, help me, please!"

There was a lock on the door, and Jefferson didn't have the key or his picks. However, there was a little grate halfway up, so he knelt down and slid the panel aside. It was a small slot, just smaller than an envelope. And all he could see for a minute was a woman's abdomen because she was still beating on the door.

She took a stumbling step backwards and gasped before dropping to her knees. (Jefferson leaned back a bit, just in case she tried to tear out his eyes...or something.) The woman inside, with those big, frightened amber-gold eyes set in her pale thin face, looked very young, but could have been around twenty-four or five. Her hair straggled down past her waist, snarled ash blonde locks tangled around her face. Her wrists looked as delicate as a bird's bones, thin and sharp, and she wore a baggy blue-green hospital gown that fit her like a sack.

"Help me, help me please," she begged, her voice thick with an accent that sounded vaguely German to Jefferson's untrained ears. Or Russian maybe? "Please, I beg you, let me go, let me go, _please_ , I haven't done anything wrong, I am not mad! I'm not!"

"O-okay, okay, calm down now, easy," Jefferson said softly, gesturing gently with his hands. "Take it easy now. What's your name?"

"I-I don't know..."

"You don't remember?"

"I don't know!"

"Alright, uh, how long have you been in here?"

"I don't _know_ ," the girl groaned, wringing her hands. "Please, I do not remember anything but this life in here. They never let me out and they force me to eat pills and drug my food and stab me with needles and I don't know what she wants from me!"

There was a very good chance that "she" could be the nurse, and that this was a genuine madwoman with some kind of delusions or other. Equally possible; This girl was Regina's prisoner.

"Who is she?" Jefferson asked.

"Um...h-her," the girl said. "I don't know her name. She is just...her. A woman with dark eyes. And hair. And sometimes I see her mouth, always red. She stares at me and smiles, and I don't know what I did to make her smile. It...it is not a nice smile."

Definitely Regina.

"It's gonna be okay, Dormouse," he said lightly, giving her a smile. "It'll be okay, I know you don't belong here."

The girl bit her lip, her eyes welling up with tears.

"You...you are real?" she asked hesitantly, reaching out with thin fingers. She could just reach out, halfway up her forearm. Jefferson moved close enough to give her hand a squeeze.

"Jefferson the Hatter, at your service," he grinned, and she giggled, sticking her other hand out the grate to squeeze his hand tightly.

"You are! You _are_ real! I can feel you! Oh, you'll help me? Will you really? Please, please I will do anything, just let me out."

"Whoa, whoa, calm down, I don't have a key. I'll be right back, alright?"

The girl was reluctant to let go, (so was Jefferson, when was the last time someone touched that girl?) but her grip did slip, and the hatter went to the nurse's desk to poke around for the key. Who else was down here? Could the missing characters be down here? There was something like eight cells, not much, but it was something-

"What are you doing at my desk?"

Jefferson looked up to see the severe nurse glaring at him through narrow eyes. She must've been out on break or something. Oh...shit...what now? Oh. Of course: **Lie.**

"Looking for some medication. We're out of sedatives. I'm going upstairs to find more," he fibbed, nodding as he went around her for the stairs.

"Didn't you check the supply room?" she said coolly, giving Jefferson a look like he was covered in raw sewage.

"We're out."

"Hmph, fine. Be back shortly, the little Ruskie lunatic down the hall is going to start screaming bloody murder soon."

Jefferson nodded and swiftly exited the basement--only he didn't return with any medications. He really, really hoped the little dormouse would be okay trapped in her teapot for now, and that the nurse hadn't gotten too good a look at him, because there was too much at stake for him to risk everything on one hasty escape attempt.

But still...every time he blinked, a pair of pleading eyes stared back at him.

* * *

The man had been gone for too long.

He had been a nice, handsome man. With dark hair, and light skin, and blue eyes and a wide grin of nice straight teeth. Jefferson the Hatter. He said he would be back, but he...he was gone for too long. It had been nice to see him though. She never got to see anyone new, or nice.

Chief was nice, but he never talked to her. He just came in with new sheets and a fresh gown once a month or so, never saying anything, and politely turning away when she changed. He needn't have bothered; She was so skinny and the gowns so loose-fitting, she could drop the fresh one over her head and wriggled the old one off until she stepped out of it without ever being indecent.

Once in awhile, The Other Man would shout back and forth with her, but that rarely happened. The Other Man was two doors down, across the hall, and quiet for the most part. Maybe The Nurse had already broken him like she had Chief. That was a shame. He'd had a nice voice. And he knew big words.

She'd never seen him though. The only people she had seen...since she could remember, were Her, The Nurse, The Man, Chief, and The Other Man. The Man was large with big strong hands that hurt when they grabbed her, and forced her jaw open when she refused to take her pills. The Nurse was far crueler, though. She was in charge. She had The Man hold her while The Nurse came with the needles. And if she started to smell, The Nurse would have her dragged out and thrust under a cold spray of water and order her to scrub clean.

Fingering her knotted mane, she wondered when the last time she washed or brushed her hair was. Probably before she ever woke up... _Here_. She didn't know where Here was. She had always been there, she thought. She never belonged here, though, but she didn't know where she was supposed to be.

A home in a village? In the dark woods? A house of horrors that walked on legs? A shop in a town, weaving cloth?

She was mad, that was the only explanation for it.

Sometimes Her, the dark-eyed woman, would come by and smirk at her. She never knew what she wanted, or why the woman teased her. She had something Her wanted. That much she knew. There was something...something that she had, that Her wanted, but she had lost. Didn't she lose it? She must have, she didn't have it with her. Maybe she left it at home...wherever that was.

The cell had been her home as long as she could remember, though. No one visited her except Her, no one talked to her but The Nurse, and that was more sneering than speaking.

And then there was Jefferson the Hatter.

Even though she had touched him, she supposed she had imagined Jefferson after all. He never came back.

The Nurse stomped in with a cup of pills a long time later, muttering about "unreliable help" and "interns, must have been an intern" and thrust the cup at her. When The Nurse was in a mood like this, it was stupid to go against her, so she obediently swallowed the pills dry and made herself small on the cot as the door slammed shut.

Jefferson hadn't come back, he probably wasn't even real. That was a saddening though to have as things started going gray and fuzzy, and she curled up on the cot to sleep off the stupor until lunch time. They'd skipped her breakfast, but that wasn't unusual, and she was rarely hungry anyway. That wasn't important either.

The hatter wasn't real.

**_And she couldn't help but wonder if she was either..._ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter XXI: A soft sweater on Gold, and a hard choice for Jefferson...


	21. XXI. Christmas of 1996

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When we last left off, Jefferson made a new acquaintance, and Lacey started on a Christmas drinking binge...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My grandmother has almost been out of the hospital for a week! And when I say "out the hospital" I mean "out the hospital without having to return for an incident because they can't decide what to do with her medication", which is a marked improvement. My muse is returning from the war, slowly but surely, and there may be an update of The Crystal-Looking Glass lined up for Sunday.

Christmas two days away, and in a week or so, it would be 1997.

Three troubling stains always darkened Rumpelstiltskin's brightest moods as the years bore on. The first was always Baelfire's absence, and how he had no idea where his boy was or if he was even still alive. The second was this omnipresent curse by which his life was governed in this town. And third, for the past three and some years, was that Basil had never been found. Indeed, he'd never been mentioned again unless someone asked about him, and even then, they'd come to believe Basil had simply skipped town years ago.

It was disconcerting how any vacuum in the power of the curse was filled quickly. Jefferson was particularly troubled by it and Rumple was certain the young man was becoming a danger to himself.

He'd come storming into the shop that day and started raving about a secret room under the hospital, and a young woman trapped down there with Nurse Ratched. (At the blank face, Jefferson then rolled his eyes and gave a short description of the woman in the film adaptation of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest.) And that really didn't make any sense to Rumpelstitlskin because Ratched was from modern fiction, the 20th century. The "youngest" literary character in town had been Basil, Sherlock Holmes.

"She said it was a woman keeping her down there, a dark-haired, dark-eyed woman with red lips, who does that sound like? Regina!" he insisted, his eyes wide. "It's her dungeon, Gold, where she keeps her prisoners! Basil must be down there, we have to get him out!"

"Did you see him?"

"Well, no, but I wasn't down there long. I can look again-"

"Wait, what were you even doing down there, I thought we agreed not to do anything stupid."

Jefferson paused. "Well...I didn't agree not to do _anything_ stupid, just no crazy ideas-"

"Oh hell, are you really going to play Belle with me right now? With Regina bearing down on us and one man already missing? Just stay out of it-"

"You didn't see her Gold!" Jefferson slapped the counter. "She needs our help! It's a prison, not a mental ward-"

Rumpelstiltskin pinched the bridge of his nose. The mental ward? He found whoever this girl was on the mental ward? Oh...no. No. This was just...no, if they were going to go down this road, he would have to check behind Jefferson just to make sure he wasn't inventing reasons to go prodding into a lion's den.

Jefferson had hated Regina with a purple passion for as long as Rumpelstiltskin had known him. While he didn't doubt that the man's faith that they were cursed and in another land was real, he did wonder if he weren't going mad in other ways. Trapped in time as they were, it was easy to go insane. Regina grew surlier every year and Jefferson grew more impatient...

"Look, it's not that I don't believe you, but do you hear yourself? A mental patient told you she was a prisoner-"

"There's no mental ward on the blueprints!" Jefferson snapped.

How did he have blueprints? Oh. That could be the proof, though.

"Can you show me the blueprints?" Rumpelstiltskin said, extending the olive branch before the hatter did something rash. "Maybe come by tomorrow and show them to me? Then we can decide what to do."

Jefferson hadn't looked completely placated, but he had agreed. Christmas Eve, Tuesday, tomorrow, Jefferson would come to the shop with his proof. Hopeful it was proof, and then they just had to make a plan. If it wasn't real proof...then Rumpelstiltskin was going to have to figure out what to do. But as for today?

Today, he had to check on Ms. French.

Every week, before Christmas, Ms. French tended to be absent or only come in for a few hours before lunch. The past few years Rumpelstiltskin was beginning to suspect it was a similar even to that period when Belle had drank until she wound up curled up on the library floor. Ms. French was absent on Saturday, and today again on Monday, the twenty-third. There was just a bad feeling squirming in his gut, and he closed up shop early to walk down to the far-feared pink lair of Miss Lacey French.

Rumpelstiltskin had walked by the pink house once or twice. It was really rather pretty, with the deep, dark green trim and stained glass on the door. He knocked and that feeling of unease grew when the door slowly slid open, not properly shut at all. Or locked.

The unease burst into full, giant butterflies swarming around in his stomach.

"Ms. French?" he called out, far too quietly, and then louder again. "Ms. French? A-are you home?"

There was a soft thud and a muffled curse down the hall, and Rumpelstiltskin froze until the homeowner stumbled around a corner. Oh, she was home. That was good but...she didn't look too good, though. Ms. French was wearing a wrinkled blouse untucked from her miniskirt, barefoot except for her stockings, and even more damningly, her hair was down and unwashed, rosy lipstick smudged and the top of a lacy white camisole peeking out of her loosely buttoned shirt.

"Did the shop burn down?" she blinked owlishly.

"What?"

"Did the shop burn down? What're you doin' here?" she slurred, swaying a bit on her feet. "I didn't give you a gee, I mean a key, did I...?"

Oh yes. She was well and drunk. Rumpelstiltskin had only handled a drunk Belle once, and she had been so thoroughly despondent it was like caring for a sick child. Lacey French seemed a bit more sober than that, but that just made him more unsure of what to do. Leave? Offer help? Get a glass of water and asprin for her inevitable hangover?

Suddenly Ms. French plopped down cross-legged on the hardwood floor where she stood, and Rumpelstiltskin decided to risk coming closer.

"Are you...are you alright, then? Th-the door was open. I wasn't sure-"

"Mmmmmm..." she closed her eyes, swaying back and forth. "'m fine...just really...really...drunk."

He laughed softly at that. "Yes ma'am."

" _Prrrrroperrrrrly drrrrrun_ - _kuh_ ," she said, rolling the R's until she looked down. "Why am I on the floor?"

"You...sat there."

"Oh."

She stumbled to her feet, nearly slipping in her stockings until she fell against the wall. Rumpelstiltskin hesitantly offered her his arm, which Ms. French latched onto eagerly, pressing her face against his sleeve. She reeked of liquor and needed a bath, but it felt nice to have her snuggle up against him. Though unethical since she was positively sloshed.

He manuvered her into the room she just left from, a large sitting room of some sort, a living room. The couch looked far more comfortable than his, though it also had liquor bottles littering the coffee table in front of it...and some glasses on the floor...

Oh dear...this was familiar. At least he hadn't found her curled up on the floor with a bottle though.

Rumpelstiltskin settled Ms. French on the sofa. She tried to get up when he stepped back, so he had to gently push her down again. "No, no, you stay right there, yeah? I'm going to make some tea."

"I'll take mine with rum," she declared, falling over on her side with a soft thump.

"Ah...I'll see what I can do."

"M'kay," she hummed, closing her eyes. "Rum rum rummmm...s'funny sound... _rummmm_..."

Rumpelstiltskin nodded, torn between laughing at the poor thing or wrapping her in his arms and promising not to let go. "I'll be back as quick as I can."

Ms. French hummed again, staying curled up on the couch while he tried to find the kitchen. Fortunately, it was nearby. Unfortunately, the appliances were so new and fancy Rumpelstiltskin was terrified he'd burn the large pink house down rather than make tea. He looked very carefully at all the knobs and relaxed a little, seeing that it wasn't too different at all from his stove. Poking around in the cabinets unearthed a box of real, genuine tea leaves rather than those nasty little bags, and a kettle. While the water boiled, Rumpelstiltskin poked around for cups and sugar and cream, all the necessary tea things.

It was stuffy in the house. Or rather, Ms. French's heating system worked properly. No matter how many DIY repair books Rumpelstiltskin read, no matter what he did to the windows and walls, his little home above the shop was always drafty. He didn't stop wearing sweaters until the spring thaw, and he'd finally found a use for all those blankets by making them into a colorful, woolen nest to sleep under. Now, mind you, it was still better than his little Frontlands hovel, but a part of him was deeply envious of Ms. French's warm house.

That part was probably his bad ankle, which had this nasty tendency to grow stiff, swell, and turn purple in the cold.

Rumpelstiltskin wriggled out of his coat, but left his sweater on. He'd found a tray to carry the tea things on and it was almost like being back in the Dark Castle. Except everything was different, too.

When he returned to the living room, Ms. French was sipping from a liquor bottle. Rumpelstiltskin gently plucked it out of her hands and replaced it with a teacup, fortunately with little fuss. She took a sip and made a face, likely protesting the lack of alcohol, but took a second drink. Then she blinked hazily and frowned. "I'm not hallucinating, am I?"

"No...do you..." Rumpelstiltskin fidgeted with his cup of tea, unsure of where to sit. "Do you hallucinate often?" _'Smooth. Really smooth.'_

"Mm...nope. But I can't explain why else you'd be here," she replied, her frown deepening as she drew her legs up under her. "Did the shop burn down?"

"Why do you _always_ ask me that whenever I talk to you outside of the shop?" he asked, because that was truly confusing.

Then again...everyone else was set into a pattern around town they never once deviated from. There was a bit of unexpected comfort in that reliability, but even for a coward greatly afeared of the unknown, it was really getting boring.

"S'just a little funny, y'know?" Ms. French blinked, looking puzzled for a moment before shrugging. At this point, she was only upright because she'd wedged herself into the corner of sofa between the back and arm, and Rumpelstiltskin decided to sit beside her if only so he could catch the cup should she drop it. As soon as he had sat down, though, Ms. French scooched herself upright and let the half-emptied cup sit on her lap while regarding him thoughtfully.

Well, as thoughtfully as she could while drunk.

Rumpelstiltskin cleared his throat. "So, ah, nearly the new year, yeah? 1997..."

He didn't know what he was supposed to say, so he was really rather thankful Ms. French squinted at him. "What're you wearing?"

"Beg pardon?"

Ms. French reached over, one hand wrapped around her cup, while the other landed lightly on his chest. She traced over the cables of his dark blue sweater, (they only looked like cables if you squinted but that's what the pattern had called them,) until she began trailing down over his lean stomach.  
"You're so soft," she murmured, and for the life of him, Rumpelstiltskin didn't know if she was talking to him or the sweater now. "Soft and dark and warm...mmm..."

She curled up against his arm, pressing her face into his shoulder while that questing little hand curled around to rest just under his ribcage in a lazy sort of hug. Rumpelstiltskin stiffened, completely unsure of how to react. Well, he was _reacting_ just fine but he wasn't sure what would be proper.

He recalled that the more time he spent around Belle, the less awkward it got, she had liked to touch. Just little grazing touches to his arms, a brush of their fingers, a small hand at his back. Two or three times she'd gone so far as to tuck a stray lock of hair behind his ear, once commenting on "how cute" his ears were. Which was...odd, really. He had weird ears, sort of pointed at the tips, that was one reason he wore his hair long, the other being he rarely had time for a haircut.

And she thought they were cute.

Well...he had found himself wondering in fits of madness here and there what it would feel like to nibble on her lower lip himself, so he supposed he had no room to judge- _What the hell was she doing?_

Ms. French, while he was woolgathering, had wiggled her slender fingers under the edge of his sweater, curling them against his hip through his suddenly too-thin shirt. Rumpelstiltskin's chest tightened and he fumbled for the teacup dangerously close to falling out of her other hand, using it as an excuse to break away from her so he could set them on the table.

"Nooo, come back," she complained. "My hands are freezin'."

"Uh...w-well, why don't you wrap them around the teacup?" he offered, even go so far as to refill her cup with fresh, hot tea. Ms. French accepted it reluctantly.

"S'not the same..." she groused into the cup, drawing her knees up in front of her like a shield.

Rumpelstiltskin chuckled as quietly as he could. His mistress was somewhere between a grumpy cat and a sulky child, and it shouldn't have been as endearing as it was. She kept her hands to herself when he sat down again, and he curiously picked up a copy of Jane Eyre from the table near his arm of the couch. It looked rather aged, though without dog-eared corners, (both Belle and Ms. French made it clear that bent pages were unacceptable in their books,) and Ms. French acknowledged it with a bored hum.

"It was from my mum, 'fore she died." Her voice was terribly flat for such information.

Rumpelstiltskin took a sip of tea before he spoke. "Were you close?"

"No closer than most mums an' daughters, I think..." she frowned. "It's hard to remember now..."

Eyeing the bottles, some half-empty, others quite empty, he asked, "How much have you had to drink?"

" _So much_."

"Ah."

"S'funny, how time passes, y'know?" she said sleepily, rubbing at her eyes. "An' what you remember?"

True enough. There were times in his own life, the ugly parts that seemed to drag on forever were ones he wanted to forget, while happier moments like Bae's childhood passed in the blink of an eye with a wealth of fond memories.

"I remember we moved here...and I remember mum died...but sometimes I have to remember how..." Ms. French shut her eyes, making a tight face like she was concentrating. "I think she died before Christmas, but I dunno...m-maybe I've forgotten. S'why I'm on a bender, y'know? I wanna...I wanna _feel_ something. Even if it's drunk. Isn't that stupid?"

Rumpelstiltskin raised an eyebrow.

"That's..." he trailed off before he could blurt out something that sounded mad. "That's not too stupid, m'l-Ma'am."

He needed to leave. Now. Before he said something wrong, did something wrong, curled around her and stayed forever so neither would be alone even if she didn't remember he wasn't wanted. This was wrong. All of this was wrong. He should-

Damp blue eyes met his and he knew he was doomed to stay.

Glancing down at the well-loved book, Rumpelstiltskin sighed, opening it to where a Dark Star Pharmacy reciept was serving as a bookmark. Jane was preparing to steal away from Thornfield after refusing to become Mr. Rochester's lover when she discovered the mad wife hidden in his attic. There was some irony in that, but he wasn't sure what it was at the moment.

"Were you reading this earlier?"

Ms. French blinked, twice, as if trying to clear her eyes. She shrugged uncomfortably, and Rumpelstiltskin felt himself smiling. Maybe this was a bad idea. Maybe he should leave. But he wasn't.

He put his fingertips on the top of the left page and began to read until Ms. French blurted, "Are you reading?"

"Yes...i-if you don't mind?"

She blinked again, then scrubbed her eyes with the heel of her hands, smearing makeup as she wriggled closer to his side. There was a pause before she gave a little wave of her smeary hand, waving on him as regally as possible. Rumpelstiltskin smiled and began reading again.

At some point between Jane collapsing on St. John's doorstep and her final confrontation with her aunt upon the hag's deathbed, Ms. French had fallen asleep, slumped against his shoulder. Her makeup was probably going to leave a mark on his sweater...but it was just a sweater. He might even enjoy a bit of proof this evening happened.

He read a bit more before his eyes grew heavy and the book slipped into his lap. His last memories were that he was warm inside and out, with his lady curled up at his side, and for just a moment...everything was right.

* * *

Jefferson had donned scrubs and slipped down into the hospital basement twice more. Once when the nurse (her name _was_ Ratched, ha!) had gone out for a fifteen minute break, and again when she'd gone out to dinner one evening.

And why yes, he'd stalked the secret door, charting the woman's comings and goings over for three days straight.

Both times he'd had to convince the girl in the basement he was real again. He'd taken to calling her Dormouse because of how she spent most of her days in a daze. Plus, dormice were cute little honey-colored creatures with big eyes. That suited her.

Time never allowed him the chance to dig through Ratched's desk for the keys. He wouldn't have had the chance on the visit he made during her break, and when she went out to dinner, this big, silent patient was wandering around sweeping the floor. Chief Bromden. Who'd have figured? It did raise the question of why Ratched's voice wasn't whispery the way it had been at the end of the book and movie, but according to fiction, Little Red Riding Hood was a preteen child.

Ruby was most _certainly_ all grown up.

This third visit, Jefferson was making in the evening with a small present tucked into his pocket. It was really nothing. A little candy cane hardly any longer than his finger, one of many in a bowl upstairs. 'Tis the season and all. It might give Dormouse some reassurance that he was real when he had to leave. It was...heartbreaking, really. If it were possible, he'd take her out the hospital altogether with him. Unfortunately, he didn't have a car. And he didn't have a plan for walking her out. He couldn't exactly sneak down a carpet to roll her up in and carry her out.

And don't think he hadn't thought about it!

Gold didn't believe him, but if Jefferson could convince him, then surely the former spinner could figure something out. He was brilliant and far sneakier than his timid demeanor suggested. If Jefferson could just snag a folder or something off the desk on his way out, that ought to do it.

In addition to a candy cane, Jefferson brought a broom with him, the same kind the Chief used. He was early for Nurse Ratched's dinner break, so he figured acting like he was cleaning up wouldn't hurt.

Oddly...the nurse wasn't there. Well...then he could visit earlier, and leave earlier. Okay.

The Chief must've been asleep by now, he wasn't roaming the corridors. Jefferson went over to Dormouse's cell and knocked four times before sliding the grate open. The girl sat up in bed, and stumbled over to the door. Her eyes were a bit glassy but she wasn't entirely out of it, because she blinked and huddled closer to the small patch of light from the open grate.

"Jefferson?"

"Hey Dormouse," he smiled, wiggling his fingers in the small opening. She reached up and wove her fingers through his, relaxing a bit. This, too, was customary, grounding her in his reality. "How you feeling?"

"Tired..." she hummed, leaning against the door. "They gave me a shot today."

When this curse broke, the Mad Hatter was going to kill Nurse Ratched.

Rather than say that aloud, however, he squeezed her fingers and plucked the treat out his pocket and stuck it through their little door. Dormouse looked at it curiously. "What's this?"

She didn't know what a candy cane was? Well...Gold had mentioned often he'd been lost when the curse first hit. It took him the better part of two years to figure out how to work with a gas stove rather than a wood-burning one. Dormouse had probably lost her memories, without the benefit of new ones. In addition to the nurse, Jefferson was going to give the Evil Queen a piece of his mind too, goddammit.

"This is called a candy cane," he said. "It's made from sugar and...well as far as I know it's just sugar and peppermint oil. It's a holiday outside, I thought you might like a little present."

Dormouse smiled shyly, accepting the treat. She fumbled for a bit with the wrapper before extracting the candy cane, and looked at it closely before giving it a lick. Her nose crinkled. "It makes my tongue feel funny."

"Uh...if it's a little cool and tingly, that's just what mint does, but if it's numb or swelling...I'm only wearing scrubs Dormouse. I'm not a real doctor."

She giggled a little. "That is okay. I like you more than doctors."

Jefferson smiled back.

"Oh, how sweet."

At the sound of Nurse Ratched's voice, Jefferson's smile fell off his face. Dormouse scurried away from the door to the farthest corner of her cell, and Jefferson turned just in time to see the burly orderly's hands reach down to yank him up.

It was a trap.

* * *

Christmas held little meaning for Regina. The cookies were a delight, but the general trappings held no value, particularly since Regina didn't have anyone to share them with. So, usually, Regina curled up with a big glass of cider. She either watched some of those television specials, or moped around, and at least twice she'd gotten lonesome enough to call Graham over.

Quite frankly, even that was getting a little dull after seventeen years or so. But earlier in the week, she'd gone to the basement and Ratched asked the customary question, "Has anyone come to visit?"

Of course, no one ever did. This was a dirty little secret; The hospital staff never wondered what lay down here, and no one desired to investigate because of both the curse, and the unpleasant nature of Nurse Ratched. (There was a lack of dragons in this town above ground, but Ratched was just as good as Mal for this purpose.) No visitors.

"No visitors," Ratched confirmed, but then: "However, I'd like to talk about that new orderly."

"What orderly?" Regina frowned. She had assigned her executioner to be the orderly for the mental ward. She wasn't sure where Ratched had come from, precisely, but she and the cruel, simple-minded executioner made an excellent pair of jailers.

"The new guy. Tallish, dark hair, blue eyes. I've seen him a time or two in here but he's hardly reliable. He said he was going to bring back sedatives and didn't come back all night."

**Jefferson.**

Regina thought she'd left him in Wonderland at the mercy of her mother. Which is to say: _For dead_. Apparently that wasn't the case, and she'd been very surprised the first time she'd seen Jefferson in town. He was finely dressed, and those little notes her curse provided her said he was an eccentric hermit with a large fortune who lived in an empty mansion outside of town. His daughter was now the Grace's daughter, Paige, who paid absolutely no mind to the man. And for a time, Jefferson didn't pay the girl any mind either...  
^Until he did.

It took maybe five years for Regina to figure out that Jefferson knew something. What? She wasn't sure. He showed up in strange places around town and sometimes stared at her like he was fantasizing about stabbing her eyes out with a fork.

However...he couldn't.

Well, _shouldn't_. Regina didn't have her magic to defend herself in this world, but it would be a very, very stupid idea for Jefferson to try and attack her. She could have him killed and buried in the woods, never to be found again, never to be remembered.

So it seemed worth it, instructing the nurse to try and catch "the new orderly" whenever he popped down there again. Which Nurse Ratched performed marvelously, ringing Regina up at a quarter past seven on Monday. She was an efficient sadist, Regina would give her that. Unfortunately whatever she'd done to Basil left him catatonic, so he wouldn't answer questions, and her other prisoner was too busy screaming or too doped up to answer...Regina should probably talk to her about dialing it down, but she never got around to it.

Jefferson was being made to sit in Nurse Ratched's chair, the executioner/orderly holding him there with a meaty hand pressing his shoulder. Ratched stood nearby looking smug, and Regina waved both of them off. Ratched said something about going to check in on the patient Jefferson had been talking to and they had used soft, padded cuffs to lock Jefferson's hands behind his back so he was unable to leave.

"Why Jefferson, what a pleasant surprise. So nice to see you...with your head attached."

Jefferson leaned his chin up, giving Regina a good look at a ropy, reddish scar stitched around his throat. "Yeah. Not that you were any help. What the hell do you want, Your Majesty?"

Ah. So he did remember...how odd. "Well, what I want is an explanation for what you think you're going to accomplish by poking around in my affairs," she said. "I knew someone had to be pulling Basil Baker's strings, I just wasn't sure who. Now explain yourself."

"What's to explain? I want your curse broken so I can have my daughter back."

"And yet, here you are, sniffing around these mental patients-"

"They're prisoners, not patients!"

"And so you'll be too if you don't start explaining yourself!" she snapped. "Listen very closely to me Jefferson. I can make you disappear. I've done it before. All it takes, is one word in the right place, and my curse will fill in any hatter-shaped gaps you leave behind like you were never there. Maybe you moved, maybe you commited suicide, maybe you went to prison because you were harassing poor little Paige-"

"Her name is Grace!" he snarled. "Leave her out of this!"

Hardly. Grace/Paige was the ideal tool to use against Jefferson in any world. Regina leaned against Ratched's desk and smiled, tapping her maincured nails against the laminated surface. "You know Jefferson, you're smart, but you're not _that_ smart. I don't think you could have come up with this-" she plucked out the sheet of paper Graham had given her years ago out, waving it under his nose, "-all on your own. Did you?"

Jefferson looked at the page of evidence and Regina saw the tiny, passing flicker of terror in his blue eyes. Correct. There was another conspirator.

"Now if you tell me who is the mastermind behind this plot, then not only will I let you go, I promise not to harm you," Regina smiled. "You'll be free as a bird, your daughter unharmed. You can't break my curse, you know. It's the Final Curse, unbreakable."

"So why do you want to know so badly who's poking for weaknesses?" Jefferson asked, looking unconvinced...but questioning.

Regina couldn't stop from rolling her eyes. "You really don't get it, do you? This is my kingdom, and I will not tolerate any rebellion from the likes of you and yours. In my kingdom, I _always_ win. Now your choices are either tell me what I want to know and go free, or I will lock you down here to rot at the mercy of the staff, and no one will know anything has changed. Not even Grace. How would you like to go unmourned by your own daughter?"

It was a long few minutes, but she saw the moment Jefferson mentally made his choice. He shifted his gaze down towards the cells and asked, "What happens to them?"

"They stay put. If you behave, I even promise to do something about their living conditions, lower their meds since nothing changes. Now what's your choice?"

Jefferson shut his eyes.

"Old World Books and Antiques."

**That was all Regina needed to hear.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter XXII: In which things start to crack.


	22. XXII. Bad Break

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When we last left off, Jefferson was apprehended, and an unwitting Gold spent the night on Ms. French's couch...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: There is a strong clue to the mystery patient in her tiny snippet this chapter.

The first thing Lacey noticed when consciousness started intruding upon her sleep was that she was going to have the mother of all hangovers as soon as she opened her eyes. Which prompted her to keep them closed.

The second thing she noticed was that she was sitting upright...sort of.

Lacey couldn't remember much, but she thought she'd continued her weekend-long drinking binge in the living room until she blacked out. Standard Christmas fare for her, really. But then...that didn't quite match with the position she woke up in. Leaning on something soft...and warm...just a little itchy, like a sweater...on a human body.

_'Okay, what the hell?'_

Peeling her eyes open, Lacey found herself curled up at a man's side, her head on his shoulder. He wore jeans and a dark blue cabled sweater, and for a lazy moment Lacey watched the man's chest and tummy move with each relaxed breath. Her copy of Jane Eyre was open on his lap, and the comforting smell of ink and paper and something musky and male tickled her nose.

And Lacey figured it out a second before she lifted her head up groggily, looking through the spots swimming in her eyes to see **_Gold_** sleeping on her sofa, his chin on his chest. Oh, the poor man was going to have a terrible crick in his neck. Wait, what the hell was he doing here?

A tea set lay abandoned on the coffee table amidst her liquor bottles. He made her tea too? What the hell happened last night?!

Lacey prodded Gold's shoulder. And again when all he did was hum and let his head loll. She noticed sparkles stuck to the loose sleeve of his sweater, apparently she'd rubbed her face all over him. Great. Since he was still out like a light, Lacey tried to discreetly wipe the makeup away. It was pretty stuck though...crap.

With just a speck of guilt, Lacey did recall one thing from last night. Her sticking her hand under his sweater. Her bleary motivation at the time had been that her hands were cold, and his sweater was all warm and soft like her golden blanket. She wondered if he'd made the sweater himself. It was about a half size too big on Gold's thin frame, comfortable loose, and it made him look...cuddly. His hair was ruffled and his face flushed with sleep, pink lips parted softly...

She shook that thought out of her head as soon as it arrived. Because she couldn't very well be a bigger person, couldn't appreciate how he hadn't violated her person, if she snogged him while he was unconscious. Lacey gave him a firm shake and lightly thumped his chest, (he was surprisingly firm,) and Gold finally stirred with a sleepy hum.

"Whuzzat?" he mumbled, running his tongue over his dry lips. It took him a minute to register Lacey was sitting there. "Belle?"

Something in Lacey's stomach twisted a bit. Who the hell was Belle? She wondered if that was Bailey's mother. No one knew what happened to the boy's mother, if she'd divorced from Gold or died or what. How disoriented was he?

"It's Miss French, Gold. What are you doing on my sofa?"

Gold ground the heel of his palm into his eyes, sitting up straighter. Maybe there was something cold in her tone to shock him awake, because he suddenly seemed much more responsive.

"I, uh, y-you weren't at the shop tod-That is, _yesterday_ , Monday, and I w-wasn't sure where you were," he stammered, shifting on the sofa like he was thinking about leaping to his feet. "I-I'm sorry. I'll just-"

Lacey felt the first stabbing pain behind her eyes and groaned, covering them with her hands as she slumped back.

"Just _be quiet_ , please. If you wanna make yourself useful, could you go into the kitchen and find me an aspirin?"

"O-of course. Would you like some tea?"

"Please?" Lacey blinked, feeling...odd. Usually when she woke up with a hangover, she took a shot of whiskey and V8 and puttered around until the feeling of impending _death_ subsided. The idea of having someone fetch her aspirin and tea was...well, yes, it was odd. "Thank you."

Gold just smiled and went to do her bidding. A woman would have to be mad to just up and leave a gentle, kind man like that. Lacey dimly recalled a boyfriend that had disapproved of her so much as sipping a flute of champagne at New Years, and insisted she should learn her lesson should she wake up with a hangover. One of the many reasons she didn't date anymore.

Ugh...she was too hungover to think properly...and she could still feel the soft, sort of rough wool of a sweater under her hand.

Gold returned with the freshly washed and refilled tea tray, handing her a perfectly brewed cup with two sugars and a splash of cream. Lacey ran her tongue over lips, then noticed that her shopkeeper had put his coat back on.

"I'll be going now," he said, and everything in Lacey rebelled against that notion. "I'll see you after Christmas Ms. Fr-"

"No, no," Lacey shifted, glancing out the half-open curtains. It couldn't have been earlier than eight o'clock outside. "It's freezing outside and you have to walk across town."

"I'll be alright-"

"Look, if you were kind enough not to violate my drunken person _and_ fix me two pots of tea," Lacey swirled said brew around in her dainty cup. "Then I should be able to offer you breakfast before I drive you home."

"Y-you don't owe me anything Ms. French, I just...I just did what I could."

Which was precisely why she owed him. Who else would do anything for the terrible Ms. French that wasn't wish her harm? She waved him to sit back down, which Gold did slowly. She hadn't realized how nervous she was that he wouldn't until he was back on the sofa.

"That was more than enough," she reassured...and then felt uncomfortable with the atmosphere settling over them. "Besides...it'd be the height of bad manners just to send you off without breakfast after you slept over, y'know?"

Apparently her shopkeeper was more innocent than she believed, because he didn't get the innuendo typical of a "one night stand" procedure. Well...good. She could keep that little thought all to herself. For his part, Gold rolled the shaft of his wooden cane between his palms thoughtfully.

"How do you feel about eggs in a basket?"

A part of Lacey wanted to protest he shouldn't have to cook...but then again if he wanted more than toast or a bowl of cereal, (wait, did she even _have_ milk?) maybe she should just leave him to it.

"Curious, I think. What is it, like scrambled eggs in a little nest of hashbrowns or something?"

"A piece of bread with a hole in the middle," Gold said, holding up his hands to illustrate the general configuration. "You fry the egg in the middle while toasting the bread in a pan, and serve. O-or I could make you scrambled eggs-"

"No, no, I'll try your eggs in a nest."

"Basket."

"Fine. Basket in a nest."

Gold snorted, a smile curling up one corner of his mouth. "As you wish m'lady, one basket in a nest."

He got up to his feet and shuffled into the kitchen, while Lacey stayed curled up with her tea on the sofa. And she realized she was smiling, too. The smile melted when she caught her reflection in her tea. _Eesh_. She should probably go wash her face so she looked less like a zombie...

* * *

Old World Books and Antiques wasn't open.

Granted, it was Christmas Eve, but Lacey French was the sort of person who had no social life, no friends, no allies, and if it weren't for her shop serving as her headquarters, she'd just be brooding in that big pink mansion on the edge of town like a dragon on a mountain. Regina expected her to be open at least today...

Rattling the door, Regina found it locked. She circled around to the back, (also locked,) and didn't see or hear anyone moving around inside. Hmm...

Perhaps she was brooding up in the mansion after all?

Regina drove over to the Queen Anne house. It was about eight-thirty when she pulled up, Ms. French's Cadillac sitting in the driveway. It was a big, oversized monster of a machine for such a tiny lady.

It would make sense that Jefferson would be be working for Belle. They had an odd sort of friendship, and Regina was certain now that Belle had something to do with the failure Dr. Frankenstein had in resurrecting Daniel. She played Regina somehow, though the details were still fuzzy. As far as Regina could tell, "Victor Whale" had only arrived because the curse spread so fast over the Enchanted Forest it punched through weak points between realms. Jefferson, who couldn't stand silence when he was walking her to meet Frankenstein, had babbled something about portals and how sometimes people just tumbled between realms because of tears in the spaces in between.

It hadn't interested Regina at the time, and there would be no point in asking now, really.

She had sent Jefferson out the hospital. And gave Nurse Ratched permission to lock him up should he ever come back down to the basement, and told Jefferson as much. He'd scowled but didn't say anything. Probably because the big orderly was looking at him like he would happily crush his skull at the drop of a hat. No one in town would believe Jefferson if he started talking about curses and fairytale characters, so Regina didn't see what harm he could cause.

He'd been extremely tight-lipped about everything, but as soon as he named Belle's place of business, Regina knew it had to be the Dark One. It was too much to hope she was really out of the game after making all those absurd demands from a prison cell.

Regina made her way up the porch and rapped sharply on the door. Part of her wondered if Lacey had drunk herself into a stupor and couldn't answer the door. Belle, while Regina had been her student, wasn't so much a heavy drinker as she was a heavy sipper. She took a nip here and there, except for one period where she withdrew from the world entirely. That was usually the ideal time to try and lay down some plans to outwit Belle. Maybe Regina should start coming up with some schemes now...

It was odd, but the thought of a nemesis made Regina feel giddy after sixteen odd years of stagnation. The only scheming she did these days was over paperwork. Blech. Her mind started racing with possibilities. The little caretaker that Regina had locked in her tower had vanished. He escaped somehow, when Snow and Charming thought to execute her but banished her instead. Love made a perfect weapon, and he would've been just the tool to crack Belle's defenses apart.

Regina knocked again impatiently, and the door opened. The scent of toast wafted out a bit.

Ms. French stood there in a black blouse and a short red velvet skirt and sheer white stockings, wearing no shoes, but her hair was washed and braided down her back and her makeup was light but expertly applied. Well the drunk theory was out...

The smaller woman arched a finely groomed brow. "Well, Madam Mayor, to what do I owe the pleasure?"

"Good morning. I just came by to tell you there was a break-in at the hospital last night," Regina began carefully, closely watching Belle's face for any changes. "The patients were upset of course but they didn't quite catch the culprit."

"What? Did he steal some painkillers or something?"

"Nothing so dramatic. Did you hear anything about it?"

"No, that would be why I asked you. I was home all night. You sure it wasn't Whale sneaking a girlfriend in for a physical or something?"

Regina held in a frown. Something was wrong. Lacey French had a sharp mind, and if they bumped into each other on the street Regina would engage in a verbal sparring session. Over the years, Regina had picked up on her tells, which were different than Belle's. But...nothing. Utterly blank.

Switching tactics, Regina carelessly shrugged. "I don't think so. A nurse said it wasn't the first break-in, apparently this man keeps poking into restricted areas."

"Well I don't know what you think I can do," Ms. French rolled her eyes. "I'm a pawnbroker and landlady with a law degree, not the police. Go find your pet sheriff maybe."

The dart was a familiar, irritating one. But still fell...flat.

Jefferson's mastermind was not Belle. _Belle was not awake_. Regina was missing some important clue and she did not like this sensation of missing a step in the dark, stumbling off a path she thought she knew by heart.

"Well..." Regina pasted a smile on her face. "I just thought you'd like to be kept informed on current events. Not much changes in Storybrooke, I thought you'd be interested to hear about this little tidbit."

" _Well_..." Ms. French shrugged, matching Regina's false tone. "You were wrong. Happy Christmas!"

She shut the door and Regina stumbled a step back from the stained glass door. It didn't add up. Ms. French ran Old World Books and Antiques, a sort of book-and-pawnshop. Jefferson said "Old World Books and Antiques" when Regina pressed him for who was the brains of the outfit. A cursed person wouldn't have noticed something was off about town and engineer a spy network. So Belle should have been awake. But she wasn't.

Regina slowly walked back to her car, turning the problem over in her mind. This was going to take a lot of pondering...and she wasn't quite sorry about that.

In fact, she relished the challenge.

* * *

Rumpelstiltskin had made breakfast, and at some point Ms. French went upstairs to clean up a bit.

He'd burnt the first piece of toast and egg because the burners were hotter than his stove at home, but the rest turned out well. There was a can of baked beans, somewhat dusty, tucked in a cabinet that he heated in a pot on the stove to go with their eggs in a basket. Ms. French had looked at the plate with more than a little interest and after a few bites she gave a little moan.

"This is delicious," she declared, dabbing a piece of toasted bread in the beans. "I never would've believed you could've made it in my kitchen. I didn't even know I had beans."

It was rather amusing to see her attack the food like it might leap off the plate. Rumpelstiltskin could almost imagine them back in the Dark Castle for a moment, although Belle had never eaten eggs in a basket there. And she had never worn a red velvet miniskirt. Although that image was...interesting. When she got up to answer the door, Rumpelstiltskin guilty peeked at her shapely legs in pale stockings and at the stretch of velvet over her bottom.

Gods. Here she was thanking him for respecting her last night, and he was leering at her behind her back.

Ms. French returned shortly, looking a little annoyed. "So that would be Regina coming by to say some weirdo broke into the hospital or something and escaped. A very merry Christmas to you too, Madam Mayor."

Rumpelstiltskin had kept a low profile, but the idea of Regina still seeing him made him feel nauseous. Just a spot of beans and a crust of yolky bread remained on his plate, so he could disguise his unease as being full. It was a combination of his ducking and fleeing, and dumb luck, that had managed to keep him safe so far. The only reason he was out of Regina's clutches was because her father had set him free when she was in custody of her enemies. That was not a place he wanted to return to.

And...that made him wonder if there was some substance to Jefferson's claims of a secret dungeon under the hospital. He'd find out later, maybe.

Scraping the debris off his plate into the trash, Rumpelstiltskin washed the pans and pots and such that he'd used. There wasn't much, so he saw no reason to use that dishwashing contraption. Plus, he had never been this close to one before. There was just the sink in his flat. and this looked...complicated. Who had come up with such a device, to wash the dishes without breaking them?

Ms. French brought him her plate and fork and offered to dry. Rumpelstiltskin tried to dissuade her, but she just sniffed and picked up a towel and the frying pan, setting to work. It was...nice. Rumpelstiltskin had been tasked with drying dishes and pots when he was small, living with the kindly spinsters, and learned to wash, like Bae had when he was old enough.

Rumpelstiltskin loved these little, happy moments with Ms. French, but they were bittersweet because they wouldn't last. Belle would remember who he was, eventually. She wouldn't want him near her, even as a drudge. The best case scenerio was that she ignored him, and hopefully he would find Bae...somehow. The worst case...well, Rumpelstiltskin had a very active imagination. There were a lot of possible problems.

That put a somber note on the rest of the morning. Once the dishes were put away, Rumpelstiltskin made sure he had all his personal effects and Ms. French grabbed her coat and snow boots. The boots weren't the heeled affairs she usually wore, so she was barely brushing his chin when she stopped to lock the door. She made a face, apparently catching him looking.

"I don't plan on getting out the car, I don't care what my feet look like."

"Yes ma'am..." Rumpelstiltskin nodded politely. She was so tiny and soft. Just the right size to make him feel almost tall, almost like they were shaped for each other. Which was insanity, beause it simply wasn't true.

The Cadillac had a heater, which was an added bonus over walking back home. Rumpelstiltskin settled into his seat and off they went, a quiet, comfortable ride back to the shop he called home. Lacey pulled up to the curb, and in a fit of his own brand of insanity, Rumpelstiltskin asked her to wait a moment while he went inside. He had baked a batch of shortbread the other day, which made for a decent snack, and put a handful into a plastic baggie. He limped back down the street and leaned inside the car, holding out the bag with a smile.

Ms. French looked at the shortbread like it was a coiled up snake, and his smile faltered until she said: "What's...that?"

"Um, shortbread. I...um..." Rumpelstiltskin felt his face heat and he dropped the bag on the seat. "Merry Christmas Ms. French, I'll see you Thursday."

And he ran, feeling like an absolute idiot, like a stupid little boy infatuated with a girl who couldn't care less about his affections, like he was the pathetic spinner and she was the fine lady so far above him he was dirt under her feet.

He was so quick to retreat he didn't see Ms. French blushing.

* * *

The Nurse had taken away her candy cane, but she could still remember the minty taste in her mouth.

Jefferson hadn't returned, but for once, she didn't mind. Because while usually she was left doubting when Jefferson left, at least until he returned, this time she had proof. Real, tangible proof.

She curled up on her thin hospital bed, crinkling the plastic wrapper between her fingers.

The dark-eyed woman had returned recently, to smirk and say that she wouldn't be recieving any other visitors anytime soon. She probably meant to hurt her, but she could only think that was more proof Jefferson was real. That she wasn't all mad, at least. Someone knew she was alive.

She eventually fell asleep, and dreamed about white knights and red knights and black knights, and flying pestles...

* * *

The next day, when Christmas dawned over Storybrooke, it dawned on Rumpelstiltskin that something was terribly wrong.

Jefferson did not show up, nor did he call. Rumpelstiltskin sat there in the shop, restocking some shelves just for something to do. Waiting. And waiting. And still waiting. At about half-past noon, Ms. French showed up. She came with two turkey and cheese sandwiches and a thermos of tea, claiming she forgot about a rental agreement that needed revising and decided to prove she could cook too. Well, as much cooking as a sandwich called for.

Lunch was pleasant and it was nearly two, sandwiches and tea long gone, before Rumpelstiltskin remembered he was supposed to keep an eye out for Jefferson. They'd been arguing over players in the Trojan War and whether Helen was simply a woman who made poor choices or if she was a pretty bimbo. Ms. French leaned towards the bimbo end of the spectrum, but not half as unintelligent as Paris of Troy. It was rather distracting.

Rumpelstiltskin returned to the front to finish his work. The monotony of bending down, grabbing a book, and sliding it onto the shelf was pleasantly numbing and familiar. He didn't pause when the shop's bell rang. It was probably Jefferson, he thought, and since the hatter kept him waiting all day, he could wait a damn minute while this watch was finished up.

"So, Mr. Gold," a voice that was decidedly not Jefferson purred. "It's a pleasure to finally catch up with you."

**_The Queen had arrived._ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter XXIII: In which Regina catches up to Gold, and brains outweigh fear for the moment...


	23. XXIII. Stop Gap

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When we last left off, Gold and Ms. French had a few stolen moments, and the Queen catches on...

Regina had gone out to grab some takeout from the one Chinese restaurant in Storybrooke, Chien Po's, intending to puzzle over Jefferson's statement while watching a crappy movie on TV. Merry Christmas.

When she arrived at Chien Po's to pick up her order, she'd run into Graham. Ah, yes. Every other Tuesday, Graham ordered Chinese. She was contemplating inviting him back to her place, but was leaning towards "no" because not only did she need to ponder this Belle problem, but even _that_ had gotten a little boring. Unsatisfying. Even a little... _guilty_.

But on her way to the restaurant that night, she had seen a light on above Old World Books and Antiques. Maybe Ms. French had popped in for a project...

So at the restaurant, Regina decided to follow Belle's advice, and asked the sheriff: "By the way, I saw a light on at Ms. French's shop on my way here. Do you think she's working late?"

Graham shrugged. "Maybe. Or maybe Gold's trying to catch up on something, I hear he's repairing some of the knick-knacks Ms. French sells."

"Who?"

"Ms. French's hired man."

"You mean Dove?" Regina frowned. On collection days, Ms. French had a bald, mountain of a man walk around town with her. She couldn't quite imagine those huge hands tinkering wih anything.

"No, Gold," Graham repeated. "You know, quiet man, sort of slight, I think he's Scottish-"

"When did Ms. French hire an assistant?"

Graham gave her this odd look that made Regina think her curse had done something peculiar. Something...unexpected. "Ms. French bought Old World Books from Mr. Gold a couple years ago, after his son died. She lets him stay in the apartment over the shop as long as he works for her."

Now, Regina wasn't very patient, but she _did_ notice some of the Storybrooke citizens had pun-like names. Ruby, for example. She'd never paid much attention to it, but Mr. Gold could have been King Midas...except Midas ran the Storybrooke Bank as Miles Voclain. You'd have thought he would be Mr. Gold. It didn't seem important so Regina took her shrimp lo mein and went home to think.

However, it wasn't until the next morning, when Regina decided to make herself an apple pie just because she could, and was looking at the golden pie crust that she put two and two together.

A small man, that made a deal with Belle/Ms. French, stuck in her service, with an accent Regina's television-watching hinted at as being "Scottish", what the old world would've identified as the northern lands neighboring Camelot...or parts of the Frontlands...

_Oh that little son of a bitch!_

Regina had stormed out of her house down to the shop, peering in through the windows, and sure enough, there was a man turned away from the front, sliding books onto the shelf. He was a slight man, with brown hair just brushing his collar, dressed in a golden brown sweater and jeans. Looking at the back of his head, Regina thought she might have seen him in a shop or walking down the street a time or two, but hadn't paid him any mind then. Oh, but she certainly noticed him now.

"So, Mr. Gold. It's a pleasure to finally catch up with you."

The caretaker's head spun around, and he looked at her with mortal terror. "M-M-Madam M-Mayor..." he stammered out, stumbling into the shelves, his eyes darting all around. "Th-the shop is closed, y-you-"

Regina took a step towards him, watching him press further against the bookshelves.

"Well it's a good thing I'm here to see you rather than buy a book, isn't it?" she smiled sharply, coming closer to the trembling little man. His cane looked like it would shake out of his hand any minute now. "How is Jefferson, by they way? Heard from him lately? I hear you two are quite close."

The color drained out of his face.

"Wh-what do you want?"

Regina's smile turned positively sharklike. "I think if you're asking me, you know _exactly_ what I want."

Gold (she couldn't quite recall his old name at the moment, it was something cumbersome,) swallowed thickly. "I-I-I d-don't. I-I just know y-you want s-something..."

Well he wasn't stupid, at least. Then again, for Belle to take a shine to him, he must have a little more than half a brain in that head of his. Regina was an arm's length from him now, and in the old world, that was a place everyone felt uncomfortable in because she could just reach out and snatch their hearts. Apparently Gold remembered that because he flattened himself against the bookcase, trying to buy any space he could.

"What I want," Regina said slowly, clearly, lowering her voice to a dangerous whisper. "Is for you to tell me what you know, and what makes you, a lowly peasant, so special that my curse doesn't affect him."

Gold shook his head. "I-I've done nothing-"

"Then why do you have a little spy ring? Don't deny it. I've seen your partners, I've dealt with them."

The mention of Basil Baker made Gold go very still. "Did you kill them?"

"That's what you're worried about? Oh," Regina chuckled, reaching out and patting his shoulder, feeling him flinch under her hand. "I think you should be more concerned with yourself. I thought when Jefferson said his partner was in this shop, that he meant Belle was awake. I really wouldn't put it past her, but she's as blind as every other fool in town, isn't she? This is a surprise though. How did I miss you for all this time? You really are a coward."

Gold swallowed.

And then: "What the hell are you doing?"

Ms. French stormed through the curtains blocking off the back rooms of the shop. (What the hell was she doing back there?) Regina stepped back from the shaky little man before the woman reached them, smiling politely.

"Ms. French-"

"Ah! Don't care!" Ms. French held up a finger. "You obviously cannot read, but the sign on the door says closed. Which means we are closed, which means not open, which means the public doesn't belong within the walls, which furthermore means you need to turn around and leave, because you're trespassing. And that's without addressing whatever the hell you're doing threatening my employee."

"I-I'm alright, m-ma'am..." Gold stuttered weakly, and both women ignored him.

Regina shifted her gaze from the man to Ms. French. Odd...very odd. She knew Belle had cared for the little sad-sack, for some reason. The curse had molded Ms. French to be cold and callous, stripped of the theatrics she'd favored in the old world in favor of outright frigidity. Why would she be so defensive of just any old employee, when the curse should have repelled any happiness?

Plastering a smile on, Regina fell into the faux-friendly role she often assumed with the shorter woman in both of their realms.

"No need to be so hasty, Ms. French," Regina said. "I was simply catching up with Gold. We have a bit of unfinished business, you see."

"That's nice, but it's gonna stay unfinished until that sign says open. Which..." Ms. French glanced at the door. "Look at that. It does not. Now please leave."

Regina opened her mouth to say something to defuse whatever snit French was working herself into. But a cold, crackly feeling washed over her from head to toe and suddenly her mouth was snapped shut. It was a sort of out of body experience, really. Regina wanted to stay put, but she was turning around, walking to the door, walking through it, and only then did she regain control of her own limbs. It was highly unsettling, and it took Regina moment to recognize that it was magic that had happened.

Of course. Ms. French had unwittingly invoked Belle's caveat.

**"And in our new home, should I ever come to you for any reason, you must do exactly what I say and when I say it. Without question. As long as I say... _please!_ "**

That was one question answered, at least. And now she knew, too, who was Jefferson's accomplice. But that raised a new question. What to do with Mr. Gold?

Part of Regina itched to summon Graham and lock the man up. Another part wondered if she should just kill him and bury him in the woods. Jefferson's daughter would keep him from doing anything rash, he knew damn well Regina always made good on threats. But she knew too little about Gold, she couldn't even quite recall his name. Rumble-something-or-other, right? No, his name didn't matter, Regina needed to nip him, the problem, right in the bud before it caused an upset with her curse.

She needed to get her hands on all of the notes he'd taken, if that single sheet Graham had turned up was any indicator that Gold was quite the scribe. That was the only thing that concerned Regina, the tangible proof. It might not be enough to convince anyone, but even she knew that if people looked to closely cracks would show in her little kingdom.

And this was her kingdom. One Regina would defend, to protect her happy ending, her victory, by any means necessary...

* * *

Jefferson had been holed up in his mansion since Regina set him free.

He was in a bind, and there was no one to blame but himself: If he had done like Gold said, if he hadn't done anything stupid, then Regina never would have known they knew. Now she knew they knew, and Gold hadn't picked up the phone all night, or at home in the shop, and Jefferson hadn't been able to warn him that he'd narked, and damn, hell, and _shit this was bad!_

If it had just been _his_ life, Jefferson would've kept his trap shut. Regina had trapped him in Wonderland, separated him from his precious Gracie, Regina's freaking mother had cut his head off and then fixed it back on-There really wasn't much left she could do to him. Except hurt Grace. And Regina was just spiteful enough to hurt a little girl. Hell, that was why she was so obsessed with punishing Snow White in the first place, wasn't it?

He'd gone home in a fog induced by fear and adrenaline. As long as he kept his head down, Grace would be okay, and he wouldn't be trapped in the basement...like Gold. And Basil...who just sort of sat on his cot in his cell unresponsively.

It wasn't ideal, but maybe Jefferson could still do something. He'd learned to play the long game, both from exposure to Belle and slowly going crazy trying to make a magic hat to return to the Enchanted Forest.

However, Gold had a son he needed to find, just like Jefferson needed to live for his Grace. The guilt was what made him need to find out what happened to Gold. The fear was keeping him from thinking of a way to do it.

And then, just as Jefferson was putting on a coat to go running down to Old World Books and Antiques--

**_Brrriiingg!_ **

Jefferson's phone never rang. Well, two Fridays in October, a telemarketer called, but this was December. He stared at the device on the table until he realized he had to answer it, and then snatched it up.

_"What the hell did you do?!"_

Jefferson almost didn't recognize Gold's voice. He sounded furious.

"You're okay? Oh my god-Gold, Gold I am so sorry, I-"

 _"What the **hell** did you **do**?!"_ the other man snapped. _"Guess what I got for Christmas this year? I got the Evil Queen backing me into a bloody corner like she was gonna kill me then and there! I told you not to do anything stupid and now I've got Regina snarling at me! You better be glad Ms. French pushed her out on the street or I might not be here to shout at you about WHAT AN IDIOT YOU ARE!"_

"And I am glad for that, honestly," Jefferson said agreeably, falling into a chair. "I was trying to call you all last night but you didn't answer. And you weren't home."

_"I was...at Ms. French's house."_

"Where?" Had he heard that right? Belle's? Alll night? Now part of Jefferson privately thought if Gold got laid it would do wonders for his confidence and stress-levels, but on the other hand, he couldn't see the former spinner purposely going home with Ms. French either...

 _"Do_ _not change the subject! What did you say to Regina? What happened?"_

_Ah..._

Jefferson inhaled. "I was going to try and get some proof from the basement. I sort of talked to one of the patients, the girl? She's sort of Russian-sounding, blonde, big pretty eyes. Um, but the thing is, that I got-"

_"Caught?"_

"Yeah...I-I wasn't as sneaky as I thought, I guess? Nurse Ratched caught me."

Gold snorted on the other end of the line. _"Of course she did. I didn't finish that book but what made you think she'd be easy to get around_?"

Why did he have to make sense all the time?

"I can't investigate the curse anymore Gold," Jefferson said. "If I do, Regina's going after my daughter."

 _"Of course. I was sort of hoping you'd say that because I have an idea to save my skin from being flayed off my bones. You will forgive me for not saying what it i_ s?"

That was the first thing that hurt in this conversation, as small and deserved a hurt as it was. The investigation was over, and a piece of their friendship seemed to break off along with it. That was a shame because Jefferson enjoyed feeling like he wasn't a madman in a cursed town. And now Regina would be watching them like a hawk. It made sense to cover up tracks and make their own plans now. Jefferson had bought a telescope to keep a lookout on the unsuspecting town from here, himself.

"Understood. So do you think this is... it? We're trapped here until doomsday?"

The pause was not reassuring.

 _"I think..."_   Gold started slowly. _"I think that every curse can be broken. I remember Belle looking into a curse to render a man impotent until he laid with the fifth daughter of a fifth son on a waning moon. Either a brunette or a redhead, I can't remember which. The point is, there is always a loophole. We just need to be patient."_

God. Jefferson was so tired of being _patient_...

"S'pose so. Good luck Gold. Hey...how did you find my number?"

_"The phonebook. I read everything."_

"You are spending way too much time with a little brunette of your own."

_" **Goodbye** Jefferson."_

"Yeah, bye..." Jefferson nodded, hanging the phone up after Gold.

That was that. For now...

But Jefferson was going to keep a sharp eye out for any sort of change in Storybrooke. The slightest of change could signal the weakening of the curse. And Jefferson planned on making full use of any weakness...

* * *

Rumpelstiltskin didn't sleep Christmas night. One reason was he was afraid Regina would have him dragged out his flat if he lowered his guard. Another was he was busy coming up with a plan so she wouldn't do that ever.

He'd sort of fibbed to Jefferson when he said he had an idea. It was more the seed of an idea yet to be planted, but it was all he had.

So, December 26th, 1996, Rumpelstiltskin finally headed into the one building he had avoided like a plague house. The town hall. There, he also walked right to the office door of the one person in town he had avoided like she carried the plague herself. And knocked. And fought against the urge to flee.

"Come in," Regina said primly on the other side of the door.

Rumpelstiltskin swallowed, slipping inside.

The inside of Mayor Mills' office was stark. The walls were papered with a white birch tree sort of pattern, a large mirror hanging on the wall, a bowl of apples resting on a table, and everything was...very beautiful, and very cold, and Rumpelstiltskin wondered if he should have wiped his feet before stepping onto the polished floor. It gave no doubt as to her identity as the Evil Queen, the same as Ms. French's knick-knack-filled home marked her as the Dark One. Sitting at her desk in a fine dark pantsuit, sat Regina, finishing a signature before looking up. Her dark red smirk set Rumpelstiltskin's nerves on edge.

"Well, what have we here?" she purred, setting down her pen and steepling her fingers. "Are you here to beg for your life?"

Rumpelstiltskin shook his head. He had to collect his thoughts if he was going to speak without an incomprehensible stutter. In lieu of words, he held up the plastic shopping bag full of paper stacks and notebooks he'd filled up over the past sixteen years. Regina eyed the plastic with an odd mix of curiosity and disdain, her dark eyes meeting his in a silent question.

The simmering unhappiness and cruel possibilities were similar to Cora's eyes, at least, once Rumpelstiltskin had the lovestruck blindfold pulled from his face. As Cora's daughter she looked similar, but not much. There _were_ differences.

He was really just distracting himself from the possibility of everything going wrong, wasn't he?

"You...you wanted what I know? This is it. All of my notes, I wrote everything down to keep a record. That's all I have to offer."

Regina's finely groomed brows crept upwards. She was either impressed, or surprised. It was hard to tell.

"And you're just going to give me all of your leverage like that?"

"What leverage? I have a few theories but it's not as if I can use them. I've dug as far as I can, there's nothing I can find to break the curse."

Regina made a sort of beckoning gesture with her fingers, and Rumpelstiltskin cautiously crept forward. He set the pag on the furthest corner of the desk from the woman, and backed up. He could ignore the mocking smile the former Queen gave him, it wasn't too different than the thousand and one mocking smiles he'd seen before.

Plucking the first notebook off the top of the pile, Regina settled back and flipped it open. She skimmed over the first page or two and hummed.

"You're quite the fastidious recordkeeper. You even ferreted out Snow White's true love in the hospital," she clucked. "Look at that. So, what are you hoping to get out of this exchange?"

Rumpelstiltskin swallowed. "You keep everything I know about the curse, every note I have, all my proof. And you leave me alone."

Regina frowned. "How do I know you won't just make up another list?"

"I promise, on my life, that I will not write another list. My word is all I can give you. I-I'm a coward, Your Majesty," his voice started shaking. "I-I have n-nothing else to offer, e-everything I know is there, in those pages. I-I've nothing, no threat, nothing at all without that proof."

His palms had started sweating while the Mayor-Queen gazed at him like an insect pinned under a microscope. If she was looking for a lie, she wouldn't find one. It was all true. That was all he had. His only bargaining chip. His only chance to live.

Regina finally chuckled, slapping the notebook on her desk and making him jump. "You really are a pathetic little man, aren't you? I almost pity you. Alright, the deal is this; I keep your notes. I'll leave you be. But know this..." she smiled, all sweetness and poison. "If you ever give me a reason to doubt you've surrendered, because this is a gesture of complete surrender, then I will find you and I will make you wish I had crushed your heart in the Dark Castle. Are we clear?"

Rumpelstiltskin nodded dumbly.

The mayor stood, coming around the desk to pick up the plastic bag. She took it behind the desk and settled back down, all evidence of this meeting put out of sight. She gave Rumpelstiltskin one more of those sickening smiles before picking up her pen.

"Have a happy New Year, Mr. Gold."

Rumpelstiltskin left with a sharp nod, before she could change her mind.

He stumbled home in a daze. It was a poor use of his lunch break because he was only a bit better than a nervous wreck for the rest of the day. Ms. French had gently prodded for the cause of his distraction before shooing him upstairs to his flat.

"You're not working, you're shuffling, shoo."

There was no argument from him. And as soon as he closed the door, Rumpelstiltskin hurried to his kitchen table. One reason for his nerves was because he had taken a page from Belle and Jefferson's books. Because he had promised Regina he wouldn't write another list. Or note. And he'd meant it.

Because his hand was still sore from spending hours copying the most important notes from the originals into a journal he'd picked up from Odds and Ends.

Allowing himself a shaky, only slightly hysterical, laugh and grin, Rumpelstiltskin flopped onto his terrible sofa and exhaled. He wasn't going to sleep well until February, at least, if her survived that long. But he had the most relevant, most important notes copied down. He hadn't lied, again, because quite honestly he was all out of leads. There was no new possibilities left, he and Jefferson had exhausted them all. There really was nothing left to investigate, at least without being locked under the basement, and that meant that even if the Evil Queen reared her head and killed them all, nothing was going to change for some time yet.

* * *

Emma Swan was sixteen years, two months, and three days old.

She was also on the run, for the third time, from her current foster home. This time she'd gotten stuck with a home for "troubled" youth. After skipping out of the all-girls home and getting caught, (thanks a ton Lily,) and later running from crazy Sara Fischer who thought she was magic or some shit, apparently, Emma had TROUBLED stamped in her file now. _Yay._

That last home was really more a study in anarchy than a proper home. There were the druggie kids that were both buyers and sellers, the borderline alcoholics that always had a six-pack somewhere in the house, the ones who should probably be seeing a psychiatrist before they were sicced on society as adults, the newbies desperate to fit in with any of them, and then the Emmas, who just knew they didn't belong period.

Emma's experience with drugs ended at a puff of cigarettes or weed if she was trying to fit in with one group, she didn't like the concept of needles and pills and powders. Life was hard enough without an addiction, and Emma was spending more time dodging those psycho kids than get along with them anyway.

And, trying not to roll her eyes at how that home had a priest dragged in from an Angelican church every Sunday to try and save their souls. The priest that had been walking around the shelter she'd spent Christmas in had been perfectly pleasant, though.

Not pushy. Not judgmental. A kindly man with weathered dark skin, a receding gray hairline, and a white smile and round glasses that made him look like a sweet old grandfather. He seemed to know Emma was lying when she said she was eighteen, but he didn't rat her out, and he brought her a hot cup of coffee and a slice of that gingerbread cake that tasted so good. A pregnant woman and her husband there had a reason to celebrate because he'd just found a job, and Emma hadn't minded sitting by them.

It had been the nicest Christmas Emma had in a long time, even if she was a face in a crowd of the homeless and forgotten.

The next morning Emma left after breakfast, grabbing two more biscuits and an apple they'd had set out for breakfast and saving them for later. She did say goodbye to the pregnant woman when she saw her. That seemed important at the time, for some reason. She'd been nice to Emma, her husband had offered to see about another job opening at the grocery store he found employment. They were good people, they'd do right for their baby.

They were the kind of family Emma wished she had...

_**And that a lonesome little part of her wishes she could find.** _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> XXIV: In which Gold waits for the world to change, and a change does happen outside of Storybrooke...


	24. XXIV. The Lost Boy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When we last left off, Gold put off Regina by surrendering his original notes, he and Jefferson dissolved their partnership, and Emma is out on her own...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note that most of this chapter takes place in the late autumn of 1999, which is about three years after the last chapter left off. There's a bit of fast-forwarding here but this is late Autumn, 1999, which is about when SOMEONE meets SOMEBODY in order for SOME BABY to be born in August...

The new year came and went. It was the middle of summer, 1997, before Rumpelstiltskin stopped looking over his shoulder at every bump and unexpected sound. It was Christmas of 1997 before he stopped expecting Regina to turn back on her promise to leave him be.

That year he also spent over at Ms. French's house in the same fashion as Christmas of '96, coaxing a glass of water into her before letting her fall asleep on his shoulder and making her a pot of tea and eggs in a basket in the morning. If Lacey remembered them doing this before, she didn't say anything. She'd even put on the same red velvet miniskirt that had become a favorite of Rumpelstiltskin's.

1998 dawned over Storybrooke same as the years before it did, with Leroy getting locked up for getting into a drunken argument with a light pole, Sean Herman and a few other teenaged boys setting off fireworks in the street and running from Graham, Mary-Margaret Blanchard looking forlorn at all the couples kissing when the ball dropped at Granny's New Year's party, and Regina looking very smug about that.

Regina had been true enough to her word in leaving him alone, but sometimes she dropped by the shop now and smirked. She was the smirkingest woman Rumpelstiltskin had ever met. She never smiled, just smirked. He wondered if she even could smile...though that made make him even more uneasy than the smirking did at this point.

Jefferson and he had decided that it was best not to tempt her Majesty's fickle attitude by hanging around each other anymore. That meant that Rumpelstiltskin was on his own again for the most part. Although he could make comfortable conversation with the Lucases and Archie Hopper. Plus, Archie had Pongo. Dogs were much easier to get along with than people.

Pongo was maybe the only creature in Storybrooke that remembered Rumpelstiltskin consistently...likely because he'd taken to keeping Nilla Wafers in his pocket for the big spotty beast.

This lead to one occassion in the spring of '98 where Pongo had tackled Rumpelstiltskin when he was out for a walk. The animal had mysteriously gotten out of Archie's yard and was running loose. The jury was still out on whether or not Pongo was _the_ Pongo from 101 Dalmatians or if he was just an uncreatively named dalmatian, but he was a nice dog at least.

While Pongo knew who he was, the rest of the town still seemed to forget...except for Ms. French.

Ms. French went from periods of Belle-like behavior, (at least Belle from their later months at the Dark Castle,) and the cold, aloof exterior of Ms. French. It was quite confusing, but Rumpelstiltskin did notice the drinking had tapered off. Christmas of 1998 had seen her coming down to the shop regularly up until the day before Christmas Eve. He'd gone over to he pink home anticipating her to be drunk, but she had opened the door soberly. Somehow that led to them making dinner, which was essentially eggs in a basket and beans again. He didn't have the excuse to stay over and take care of her in the morning this time, so he'd gone home and wished her a Merry Christmas.

And wondered if he imagined the look of disappointment on her face...

It was now the autumn of 1999. And Rumpelstiltskin noticed something he hadn't before. The more time he spent with a person, the more they acted...differently.

Archie Hopper was a softspoken, timid sort of man but he had started speaking his mind more. (Granted he was still the epitome of politeness and good manners, but still, he was more open.) Ruby was less extravagant in her need to stand out, a bit more mature. Those were the two people Rumpelstiltskin spent the most time around, but he'd also noticed Penelope Homer was a bit different.

Until now she'd sort of been a doormat, quietly languishing in a routine she'd kept since her husband went missing overseas and he son went off to college, but she'd started being a bit more active now.

She may have even taken a shine to Rumpelstiltskin if he didn't know better. Which was odd because he was thinking she might be Odysseyus's wife Penelope, and...and that was just a bit too odd for his tastes, lovely woman though she was.

Rumpelstiltskin might not have noticed the time passing at all, actually, if it hadn't been for the fact that the children were even more stagnant than the adults. Paige Grace was still a ten-year-old with a fondness for rabbits, Ava and Nicholas never connected with their father Mr. Tillman, and poor little Charlie Brewster was stuck on the same math problem for nearly eighteen years.

Rumpelstiltskin was starting to think that the curse was permanent. He appreciated the monotony of routine, it was safe and predictable, but even he would admit Storybrooke was a boring little town. He found himself pitying poor Sister Astrid at Miner's Day, doomed to sell maybe a dozen boring white pillar candles for eternity. And Marco, having to repair the same sign over and over again. And envying Prince Charming in his coma, for sleeping through everything.

Something had to give...he just wasn't sure what.

* * *

People had a few universal traits. They all wanted to get ahead, they all had a speck of selfishness, and the ones that had a bit more selfishness and were further ahead tended to be complacent. Complacency was easy to exploit in little, "innocent" ways.

Whether it was a clerk too absorbed in a magazine to notice you shoplifting a bag of Funyuns and some other essential foodstuffs, a lazy security guard not noticing you walking off with some new clothes, or a rick banker type with a big James Bond villain watch that Neal Cassidy always wondered why they didn't notice went missing.

The things were heavy, some made with solid gold. How didn't they notice when he pinched it off their wrists?

Now and then, prickles of guilty would rise up in Baelfire because he'd essentially become a theif and liar. Well, more thief than liar, not that he couldn't talk his way out of a jam with the best of them. His father would be horrified, but _Neal_ was in too deep to figure his way out just yet. He would try putting those thoughts to the back of his mind because Papa wasn't here, he had to find his own way.

Even if it was a little...iffy.

There was no mention of the Dark One in this realm, but there was a _Rumpelstiltzkin_ , with a wrongly spelled name, a little imp that spun straw into Gold. If that was true, then they sure as hell wouldn't be peasants, but Neal never found himself in any of the stories...

Confronted with magic and the old world, Neal did the same thing he always did when conflicted, he found a distraction and avoided the issue until it stopped bugging him.

 _'Speaking of,'_ Neal snickered, where he lay half-asleep across the back seat of a Volkswagen Bug in Portland Oregon.

He'd learned to drive from a couple of other delinquents,-nice guys, smoked too many cigarettes though,-and while Neal had never owned a car, he'd stolen them before. Maybe this wasn't the most discreet of cars to steal, it being lemon yellow, but it rode nice, and Neal liked it. Bugs were cool cars. The backseat was surprisingly roomy, and Neal had stretched out to take a nap. He was half asleep when he heard an odd scraping sound.

He hadn't heard a sound like that...unless he was working a slim jim in the car door. Funny. Usually he was on the _other_ side of the door, of course.

Neal shifted around, trying to get a glimpse at the would-be thief.

He caught a glimpse of a long blonde ponytail, maybe some dark framed glasses. Holy crap, this gal worked fast. The lock popped open and she climbed inside. Neal saw a black leather jacket as she settled into the driver's seat, whipping off a black messenger bag and dropping it into the passenger seat. She picked up a large rock and beat a long, flathead screwdriver into the ignition with a few sharp whacks and Neal smiled. She was very good, quick and clean, very professional.

That was probably why Neal had stayed quiet for so long, watching.

She started up the car and pulled out the alley Neal had parked in, which made him realize that he was being carjacked. Huh...wait, what was he supposed to do now? Well, maybe he could talk her into pulling over. Or give her a ride somewhere. Let's see how this played out...

"Impressive," he grinned, sitting up. The girl-and she couldn't have been over twenty,-whipped around and squawked, her green eyes wide behind her thick-framed glasses and her face pale. "But really...you could have just asked me for the keys."

Neal let the Bug's key dangle from his finger. The poor girl looked at him, then back at the road she was still rolling down, then back at him, completely confused by the strange guy in the green hoodie sitting in the backseat.

His grin didn't fade in the least.

"Just drive," he waved his hand forwards. "It's fine."

"I just stole your car, your life could be in danger," she said, almost in disbelief.

Well, it wasn't really his car, so that was irrelevant really. Actually, Neal wasn't sure what the protocol was in this situation. He'd been caught stealing a car once or twice, but he'd never been caught with a stolen car...by another thief. Given the circumstances, maybe introductions were in order.

"Neal Cassidy," he greeted, watching traffic ahead of them.

"Yeah," she shook her head, glancing at him in the rearview mirror. "I'm not giving you my name."

"I don't need your name to have you arrested, given that the robbery's in progress..."

The girl pursed her lips, glancing over her shoulder. "Swan. Emma Swan."

"Good name," Neal nodded, because it was. A nice strong, distinctive name. _Emma Swan_. The silence between he and Emma Swan stretched on until she shifted in her seat again.

"So...do you just live in here, or, are you just waiting for the car to be stolen?"

Hmm...how to answer that? "Why don't I tell you over drinks?" he grinned, almost snickering at how fast Emma whipped her head around.

"Excuse me?"

"Hey eyes on the road!" Neal pointed at the stop sign she rolled right through the intersection. The number one rule of car-theft was to obey the rules of the road, so that the police didn't pull you over and you didn't draw attention to yourself--

The Taurus that _just_ missed their bumper slammed on the horn in protest, but otherwise they were fine. Phew.

"I am not having drinks with you," Emma said stubbornly, returning to the matter at hand. "You might be a pervert."

"Well, I might be a pervert. But you're _definitely_ a car thief."

"I said I was sorry."

"You didn't, actually." Neal glanced at her, leaning his elbows on the back of the front seats. He studied the profile of Emma's face, the tip of her nose and the cheap lipstick on her lips. Yup. Definitely a runaway like him.

_**Woop-woop!** _

A police car started pulling up in the next lane, right beside them, lights flashing and a stern-looking officer behind the wheel. "Damn it," Emma groaned, slumping down in her seat.

Neal pinched the bridge of his nose, lowering his head. "That's why I said to keep your eyes on the road."

Emma pulled over, wisely, because Neal did _not_ want to go to jail riding in the back seat of a bright yellow Bug because she decided to gun it and outpace the cop-car. Oh wait. Shit!

"Screwdriver!" Neal lunged forward, fumbling through Emma's fluttering hands to yank out the tool and jam the key into place. He flopped back in the seat and Emma assumed a faux-casual pose leaning on the door as the policeman strode up.

"License and registration," the office said. Aw crap, he was big. And not fat big either. _Muscle big._

"Hi!" Emma chirped with a sunny smile, and Neal darted forward in the seat. He'd learned how to talk out of many a tight spot, and he plastered on his most charming grin as he looked the officer in the eye.

"Terribly sorry officer," he winked. "It's actually my car, I, um, I, uh, I-I'm trying to teach my girlfriend how to drive stick."

The officer had a poker face like a statue. He turned back towards the intersection Emma had blown through. "She's got a lot to learn."

Neal bobbed his head. "I know. But, you know...women."

Emma gave him a look that said in another situation, she would slap him across the face. Personally Neal didn't think women were better or worse drivers. Hell, Morraine had to teach him how to climb a tree. Maybe if they didn't get arrested, he'd apologize later.

The officer stared at them for a moment, then he nodded. "Right, I hear you. It's a warning," he waved his notepad at them sternly. "This time."

Oh thank _god_.

"Yep!" Neal nodded quickly. "Thank you so much."

The officer nodded politely, tipping his hat to Emma as he walked back to his car. Neal pushed the front seat up so he could climb out the car, then he went around to slid into the passenger side. Sure enough, Emma huffed indiginantly.

"What are you, a misogynist?"

"Your welcome," he said. "Now. Go. We got lucky."

Emma moved to start the car, but paused. "We...? This isn't your car either, is it?"

Neal looked at her, his mouth gaping a bit. Hmm...how to phrase this...?

"I stole a stolen car?" Emma said, and Neal thought she was smiling a little bit. _He_ was grinning, at least.

"How about that drink?"

* * *

After August had skipped out of town with the older kids from the foster home, he was quickly introduced to this new realm. Just electricity, hot and cold running water, and television had been a shock. But without the system keeping him tucked into line like one of many tin soldiers all arranged neatly?

_Holy crap._

In a bit of retrospect, it was really amazing August wasn't dead, permanently imprisoned, or murdered in one of the many horrible ways a child could be maimed and killed when they went missing. The older kids left him to his own deviced for about three months before he was caught and shipped to a new foster home. August ran off again within the year, and from there to the time he was fifteen and skipped out on his last home, (nice family, he felt guilty for cashing in on the missus's necklace at a pawnshop, even though it was a big ugly thing,) August W. Booth likely had a big red **BAD KID** stamped across his folder.

He could have been worse, of course. He could deal drugs, he could be alcoholic, he could have an STD, human trafficking...there was a saying in this land: "God favors fools and children."

Or something like that. While August wasn't a child anymore, he could be accused of being a fool, and he'd certainly gotten out of tight spots with just his silver tongue and an ass-load of blind luck.

Which was what brought him around to his current dilemma...

The first time August felt guilty for leaving Emma behind was that second foster home. He realized he'd abandoned the Savior and racked his young mind for a way to find her again. He'd run away to the foster home where he'd been, (actually got put back in there when he was caught that time,) but Emma was gone. It had been two years, and Emma had been transferred to another home. August had looked it up online, (computers were a fantastic invention,) and found it was a nice-looking place. Better than the crumbling townhouse in a halfway-to-hellish neighborhood. She'd be fine.

So he thought at the wise age of eight and a half.

When August turned seventeen, it occurred to him that Emma would be ten years old. The Savior wasn't a squirmy baby that liked funny faces, somewhere out there, she was a little girl. One he was supposed to take care of.

So, again, hopping onto the internet, August started prodding around until he turned up Emma...Swan. Emma Swan. She'd been adopted and returned once the Swan family unexpectedly got pregnant. That was...harsh. She was back in a home, though, one that had a good, clean record and no history of anything creepy. All female-staff, good funding, the rooms weren't overcrowded. It seemed fine to August, and he figured once he turned eighteen and got a bit of money in his pocket, he could go get her and start making up the lost time.

Only then August teamed up with a couple of spring breakers and spent almost two weeks in a haze before chasing this cute redhead back to Canada...until her dad found out his little girl had a scruffy friend-with-benefits.

Then August ran like hell and laid low in Quebec for a little bit, recouping his losses from his dropped backpack of belongings. He learned how to run a con with a couple of young men a bit older than him and enjoyed the money it earned him. He'd found a cuter blonde girl until she found out about the equally cute brunette he was seeing at the same time and August headed back to the States. _Yikes._

The next thing August knew, four years had passed. He wanted to get into contact with Emma, at the very least, so he posed as a distant long-lost relative or something when he walked up to the home she was still supposed to be in. _Supposed_ to be was a key word, because Emma had run away just the other week. With the whole system alert to Emma Swan's status, August made an attempt to find her before he got wind that she'd been caught and sent to a new home.

There was no way he could reach her right then, so, August decided to go back to his original plan and wait until he scraped up the funds. This time he went as far as deciding once he'd convinced Emma, he would take her to Storybrooke.

That plan took a bit of a turn because August wasn't really good at honest work. He'd gotten fired from his job as a stockboy because he and these other two were caught smoking weed in the breakroom. Then his second job ended because he, according to the manager, spent too much time chatting up the cute co-eds and not enough time serving their coffee. While trying to hold down his pizza delivery job, that he could manage well enough, August had decided to beef up his savings account. However...he took out the loan from a loan shark.

August hadn't known it was a loan shark at the time! This guy that worked at the Dominos just said that he was easier than dealing with the bank as long as you kept up with the payments. And guess who fell too short one month because his cheaply bought motorcycle needed new tires?

So, while hiding in a thrift shop and hoping the shark's thugs hadn't noticed him dart in here, August made his way to the back of the store. He was hoping to find the emergency exit, instead, he found an old man with a thick white beard and a red sweater standing there. And August could have sworn he hadn't been there a moment ago...

"Good afternoon," the stranger greeted pleasantly, shifting his broom to his left hand. "Are you looking for something?"

"Ah...nope!" August smiled back, rocking on his heels. "Just browsing. Never too soon to start my Christmas shopping, I don't want to be like my dad and scurrying around at the last minute."

That was a foul lie on August's tongue. He usually avoided the "my dad" lines because his father Gepetto was one of the kindest men in the Enchanted Forest, a gentle woodworker that gave him life. And had done everything he could to protect him from the curse by sending him off as Emma's guardian. And here he was, screwing it up.

"Well, if you're interested in something for your father," the man said, patting an old-fashioned typewriter fondly. "Perhaps this is to your liking? A 60s era portable manual typewriter. The black is a nice color, I think. It comes with a box to transport it in. Made of wood."

August could have sworn the man was making a joke at his expense...which he very well could have been...

The puppet string cord around his neck felt tight.

The man smiled, glancing down to tap on the keys. A sheet of paper was already fed into the machine, and August thought for a moment he was receiving sort of a demonstration on how the thing worked. The keys clacked as the man typed out _The quick fox jumps over the lazy brown dog_   and then gestured to the machine with a flourish.

"A marvelous machine. It makes producing documents so much faster. In my day, you had to handwrite everything."

August wondered how old this geezer was...because he wasn't sure, but typewriters had to have been around since before the thirties, and this guy didn't look too much older than his sixties. "Uh-huh..."

"You can type just about anything you can imagine, very convenient," he went on, nudging August towards the typewriter with the end of his broom. "Go ahead, write whatever you want. Or maybe it'll write what you need."

August turned around to say, _"How the hell does that work?"_   but...the old man was gone. Vanished. The broom was lying on the floor, though August hadn't heard it fall. He hadn't even heard the old man walk away-

_Clack-clack-clackety-clackety-clack!_

A chill ran up August's spine and he whipped around. That was it, he was out of here! The typewriter had start running on its own and bad shit always happened in movies when-

Then his stomach dropped when his eyes fell on what the machine had typed out. No. No. Not possible. Couldn't be possible. It was a land without magic. No magic. This couldn't...couldn't possible...

**I know you are Pinocchio.**

August glanced at the tag for the typewriter. It was fifty bucks. Plus tax...

Long story short, August bought the damn typewriter and skipped town, strapping the box securely onto the back and heading across the state line out of the loan shark's way. He snuck into a motel room after the family left it, (he wondered how many people did that,) and helped himself to a box of leftover Cheez-Its while poking at the typewriter keys. He'd typed out _Pinocchio_ and _Gepetto_ and _The Enchanted Forest_ , a dirty limerick, _The Savior_ , _The Dark Curse_ , and finally, _IS THIS PIECE OF SHIT MAGIC OR NOT?!_ before flopping onto his back and shutting his eyes.

Rude morning sunlight spilled through the open blinds and woke August. He'd have to move fast before the cleaning lady came in and got a surprise, but washed his face in the sink and stuffed some food into his saddlebags before returning and glaring at the typewriter. It could have been a trick. Ouija boards in this land operated because some naughty kid at the sleepover moved the pointer around and gasped about spirits. Maybe it was electronic or something?

August decided to put it back in the box and leave the cumbersome thing in the room along with some kid's Superman flip-flops, but then he noticed a new line of text. The typewriter had gone ahead and written out a message, again, while he must've been asleep. The message was even more jarring than the first, when it guessed his name was Pinocchio, so August strapped it onto the back of his bike again and peeled out the parking lot to head northwest, just like the message said:

_**Find the Savior, her destiny is at stake...** _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter XXV: A new arrival in Storybrooke.
> 
> Note: I'm not adding the story that was known as Camelot, (god willing I will introduce Merlin someday!) so here is my explanation for the magic typewriter and how August appeared, using the same unexplained magic that let Merlin introduce himself to Emma in the movie theater. I'm going with projection, the Apprentice inserted himself in the shop and led August to the typewriter which has a sliver of The Author's magic, like how Henry was automatically writing things in the Underworld. This make sense?


	25. XXV. Little Prince

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When we last left off, two car-thieves meet and Rumpelstiltskin is waiting on a change, both of which are quite connected...

A very pregnant Emma Swan had been shuffling out her room to go to the dining hall half-heartedly when she felt a funny sensation in her lower belly. She thought it was those Braxton-Hicks things again, until something gave between her legs. She shouldn't be wetting her pants because Emma had gone to the bathroom not five minutes ago, and even though she had to pee _all the time_ these days, that seemed unlike-

"Oh shit..." Emma muttered, looking down at her soaked-through pants. Her water broke. Oh shit indeed.

She was taken to a hospital, and it didn't feel like this was happening to Emma until the first contraction ripped through her. **_Holy shit!_**

She'd been cuffed to the bed, which was an asinine security measure since Emma was as big as a whale with swollen ankles and also currently in freaking labor screaming as things started happening downstairs that she hadn't read about in those pamphlets the nurse encouraged her to read but she didn't ever get around to.

Emma had already decided she was giving _it_ up. She didn't even think about whether _it_ was a boy or a girl, because either way, _she_ couldn't be a mother. She was barely eighteen, little more than a child herself, she couldn't give it a home or affection or all those things she never had and didn't know how to give. It would be a disaster, not to mention, she still had over two months of a prison sentence to serve.

She had never hated Neal Cassidy more in her life.

And she had never wanted him so badly to hold her hand and tell her it was going to be okay, even if it was a lie. Especially if it was a lie.

The power might have flickered when the baby was finally pushed out of her, Emma's head was swimming too much to tell. She turned away at the faintest glimpse of the gooey red thing squirming in the attendants arms, hiding her face in the pillow. They were saying something about how she could change her mind, and asking if she wanted to hold him. It was a him. No. No. No.

_"I can't be a mother."_

And so he was whisked away before Emma had to push again, this time the placenta, which didn't hurt as much, and then they left her to rest. That's what they said. Rest. Like she was a normal person instead of a delinquent piece of street trash, a teen mother statistic on a spreadsheet.

Emma decided against terminating her pregnancy for a stupid reason. Because the kid- _it_ ,-was a piece of Neal, for better or worse. The math said that it must've been conceived around the time they were in the motel. When they settled on Tallahassee to retire from "the Bonnie-and-Clyde act" as Neal called it. Before he'd abandoned her and let her go to jail for his watch-theft. Before she felt so hurt, so betrayed, and so stupid as never before. What had she been thinking? That Neal would really want to settle down with her behind a white-picket fence? What the hell would he do if he'd found she was pregnant?

Every aching piece of Emma screamed that he'd abandon her all the faster, that if he could betray her as easily as steal her a necklace, he never really wanted her around.

And if she cried a little and dreamed about a dark-haired man in a hoodie holding a small dark-haired boy with her eyes in a warm, softly lit somewhere, then that was just a fluke.

* * *

Regina was either going to murder someone in this insipid town or go insane. If she hadn't already. Victory used to be boring, now it was just a punishment.

Even the short-lived excitement she got from outing the conspirators was...short-lived. She'd burned Gold's notes after reading through them, rather surprised at all he'd dug up. At the time it felt like the safest way to secure her place as queen of her kingdom, and if she could drop by Old World Books and Antiques once in awhile to taunt the fearful man with her mere presence, so much the better. Right?

Wrong.

"Mary-Margaret" was positively subservient, her entourage of followers from the Enchanted Forest oblivious they were once victorious over the Evil Queen, and even Belle/Ms. French was dull as could be. It was 2000, the new milennia, and Regina had never felt more prickly and aggravated in her entire life. She'd almost been hoping for a cataclysmic event from the computers crashing or whatever, that would be _something,_ at least.

She was so desperate, in fact, that she set up an appointment with Dr. Hopper, who had come to her, as requested, and sat there with his bright red hair and colorful sweater vest very out of place in the austere décor.

He babbled about his dog license and then said something that sounded perilously close to insubordination and Regina's was so out of sorts she nearly blurted out that she was the Queen. Okay. Maybe she wasn't okay, point to the cricket.

"I am a therapist, that's why you asked me here, isn't it?" he pressed, smiling. "What's bothering you? What are you feeling?"

Regina felt a dark knot tighten in her chest. "Nothing," she bit out, and then paused. "I'm feeling...nothing."

Dr. Hopper took a moment and said, "If I were to guess, I'd say, you are a driven woman. And sometimes that can leave a hole."

"A what?" Regina blurted out tightly, eyes widening. What the hell was this quack saying?

"A hole, an emptiness. There's more to life than work, m-maybe that's why you feel dissatisfied-"

"I'm _not_ dissatisfied." Regina snapped. "I love my life!"

Dr. Hopper actually chuckled a bit. "Well what's the point if you have no one to share it with?"

"There's that bluntness again..." she muttered. _'You're on thin ice, cricket.'_

Taking a step back, Dr. Hopper shifted in his seat and asked, "Ha-has there ever been a time in your life when you haven't felt this way?"

A time? Well with Daniel of course, but that was when she was a naive child, for all she wished to return to that time. But it was out of reach. He probably meant something more practical, a situation or a point in her life when...oh...

"When that little boy was here," Regina said slowly, feeling her lips smile against her wishes. "Owen."

Regina had a miserable childhood, even though her father had done his best. She was alone, either neglected by her mother, or on the recieving end of every criticism. Granted Hansel and Gretel hadn't been her greatest examples, (or Snow "Daddy's Little Girl" White either...) but Regina didn't bear any ill will to children. They were what they were taught to be, ultimate proof of leading by example. She'd liked little Owen, it made her feel less...empty, when there was this child looking up at her.

"Ah," Dr. Hopper smiled then, and Regina frowned. "A child. They give your life so much meaning."

A child...

Regina dismissed the therapist after a few more questions. The idea of a child in her life seemed off the table once she'd drank that potion to make herself barren. She didn't want a child to be used as another pawn in her mother's elaborate games. Cora always acted like she had Regina's best interests in mind, and then she up and flipped things around so that she came out on top with Regina her good little girl, if she followed her mother's instructions. That was definitely not what Regina would wish on anyone.

But without the political advantages of children, in this realm...maybe motherhood was an option. Not the pregnancy and birth part, but there were adoption agencies.

The only problem was that adopting a child was very complicated, lots of money and background checks and enough red tape to make you wish for a pair of scissors, as Regina found after spending an entire freaking morning on the phone with the damned agencies in the first place. Money wasn't an issue, nor was her curse-provided background. And fortunately, red tape dissolved in the hands of one individual...

Ms. French was the only one in the shop when Regina arrived, standing behind the counter, tapping her fingers on the glass. She looked a bit bored behind her impassive poker-face, her blue eyes lazily regarding Regina as she walked up to her over the hardwood floor.

"I want a child, French. And I need your help."

"Flattering, but I haven't the proper equipment, have I?"

"Not like that!" Regina scowled, looking away. This was hard enough without her going all _Belle_. "I spent all morning speaking to adoption agencies over the phone. The waiting list is over two years...but you, Ms. French, _you_ know how to cut through red tape. And if anyone can work the system to get me a baby? It's you."

Lacey smirked. " _You_ wish to adopt?"

Something about her tone struck Regina as odd. "Well don't look so surprised."

"Oh, I'm not," Lacey shook her head. "I'm sure you'll make...well are you sure you wouldn't rather try getting a cat first? Perhaps a dog?"

This would be much, much easier if she didn't go full Belle on her. What the hell? Either Ms. French would say no and want to make a deal, (some things never changed...) or she'd say yes and complain a bunch. What was with the excessive attitude?

"Will you help me, or won't you?"

Lacey rolled her eyes, making a show of examining her well-groomed nails. "Of course I will, but are you sure this is something you're prepared for?"

"It's something I need," Regina insisted, grinding her teeth.

"You might be confusing _need_ with _want_ , Madam Mayor, but..." Lacey shrugged. "Yeah. I'll get to work."

Regina gave a satisfied nod and turned to walk away.

"Though I'd really consider a pet if I were you." And Regina turned around to glare at her, but Lacey clearly didn't care. "When you become a parent, it isn't just about your needs anymore. Sometimes you'll have to sacrifice things to make sure they get what they need, usually at your own expense."

All Regina needed was for Ms. French to cut through the damned red tape, she didn't need parental advice. Especially considering the only babies Belle ever came in contact with were stolen firstborns. So she left without comment, to procure appropriate baby furniture for a nursery, and a child-sized bed for when they were older. Everything was rather neutral, because Regina wasn't sure, not cared, if it was a boy or a girl.

Everything was put together in the three days it took for Ms. French to call and say she had found a baby boy, ready to go home after some paperwork was exchanged at the adoption agency. The minor fear that she wouldn't be able to cross Storybrooke's town line was a minor obstacle when Regina drove past the sign and down the roads of Maine. The first building she passed was a diner of sorts, and Regina had stopped to find a map. The diner was maybe five miles down a very winding, rarely used road from Storybrooke. Who'd have thought?

The Boston-based agency, Boston Angels, was very clean and quiet. The man Regina was talking to, a pleasant man with rich dark skin and curly graying hair, seemed rather impressed by the application Ms. French had drawn up.

"Well Ms. Mills, your application is almost too good to be true," he praised, looking at her over the tops of his glasses before turning his gaze back to the papers. "I mean your references are impeccable, and this town you live in, Storybrooke. You're the mayor?"

"Third term," Regina nodded. "All unopposed." Which was true...enough.

The man across the desk removed his glasses, so they hung arond his neck on a strap as he folded his hands together. "Never heard of Storybrooke."

On the trip here, Regina had formulated several answers if this came up. She picked one at random, putting on her best smile. "It's a...hidden gem. Peaceful. Perfect for children," she added, and then for the hell of it: "It's like a fairytale. You should come visit some time."

"I get two weeks off a year," the man chuckled. "With all due respect, Sanders has an all inclusive buffet. You got that in Storybrooke?"

Regina wasn't entirely sure what an "all inclusive buffet" entailed. Talking to non-Storybrooke citizens was a bit of a shock, for all she was longing for a change for so long. People were so...reactive. Between that and the nerves bubbling in her stomach at the prospect of taking home a child, Regina laughed nervously, shaking her head. "I'm afraid not."

The agent laughed again, spreading his hands. "Anyway, I've explained your rights and responsibilites, but there's on item I'd like to go over in detail..."

Oh gods, Regina had heard variations of that word- _details_ ,-from Belle too many times to feel calm at that. What was wrong?

"This is a closed adoption," he started. "Which means you'll never be able to contact your child's birth parent. It's a complete information black out. The parent's name, the ethinicity, the geneological records. You won't have access to any of it."

Oh...was that all? A weight slid off Regina's shoulders, because quite frankly, she didn't give a damn about all that. Who this baby was before she adopted him hardly mattered to her, who gave it away was even less interesting. So she honestly answered: "I'm concerned with my child's future, not his past."

"Well, then congratulations," he grinned. "Are you ready to meet your son?"

Those bubbly nerves in Regina's stomach felt like fireworks popping away now, and she couldn't help but nod and grin like an idiot. This was really happening! "Yes!"

The agent pressed a button on his desk and Regina turned in her chair, craning her neck to look out the open door in the hallway. It was probably only seconds until a kind-face woman with a green cardigan came into view, but it felt like ages, and then all time stopped when Regina's eyes fell on the small bundle she carried.

Something fluttered in the former Queen's chest as the bundle was held out to her, something soft and warm. The baby burbled a little as he was passed between the social worker to Regina, and as her eyes settled on his sweet little face, Regina knew she was hopelessly in love.

"Hello there," she cooed. " _Henry_..."

"Henry, huh?" the agent hummed from across the desk. "You don't meet a lot of Henrys nowadays. Very old world."

The man had her attention throughout the entire paperwork process, but may as well have speaking in tongues now that Regina had this baby tucked into her arms. His eyes were still blue, and Regina was hardly an expert, but she thought he was the most beautiful baby she had ever seen. Still, the agent made the process clear, so she could afford _a little_ of her attention divert from her son.

"It was my father's name," she murmured. "He...passed sometime ago..."

"I'm sorry to hear that. I hope it was peaceful."

Not...quite. And the most unpleasant thing about this situation was probably that the man sounded so sincere in his well-wishing...

Daddy would have loved a grandson, Regina was certain, but that...that hadn't exactly worked out in her happy ending. Sacrifices. Sacrifices had to be made. For her to find her happy ending.

In her arms, Henry began crying. And Regina felt a flicker of momentary panic that she was sure was natural in new mothers, because who knew what to do to a crying baby that belonged to you the first time it cried?

Apparently she looked a bit more panicky than she felt, because the agent shifted in his seat. "Oh, do you need some help?"

"Oh no, no," Regina shifted Henry on her lap, relieved when he started quieting down a bit. "I've got it!"

Henry appeared appeased, and Regina felt herself grinning. She could do this. She could raise this child. She would be a better mother than Cora was to her, she'd love him with all of her heart, and keep him safe. Her little prince, Henry Daniel Mills.

"Come on Henry," she said, bringing her nose close to his tiny one. "Let's go home."

* * *

Rumpelstiltskin had woken up with a cold on Thursday. He rarely got sick, for all his body lacked in size and strength, apparently he had an impressive immune system, but whenever he had before Ms. French would banish him back to his flat so she didn't catch what he had. This time, she'd banished him and chided him to stay in bed and hydrate. Which was sound advice, and come Sunday, he felt alright except for a sore throat. He popped out to the pharmacy for some minty cough-drops and decided on splurging on a cup of soup from Granny's.

Ms. French was sitting outside on the patio with a steaming cup and a half-finished hamburger. Rumpelstiltskin was unable to resist passing by without saying anything. It was a pleasantly warm October day, eighteen years since the curse had begun, and quite frankly, Rumpelstiltskin wasn't sure it was going to end at all. He may as well put his fear behind him and enjoy spending time with the lovely Ms. French...at least as long as Madam Mayor wasn't around.

Which she was not.

Ms. French gave him a charming half-smile and cupping her chin in her hand. Her lips were tinted a complimentary berry shade that went well with her pale skin and auburn hair, the charcoal peacoat and houndstooth miniskirt an appealing combination. He wouldn't have been able to resist her invitation to sit across from her if there had been a gun pointed at his head.

"Good afternoon Mr. Gold," Ms. French greeted. "I hope you aren't contagious."

"Ah, no ma'am," Rumpelstiltskin smiled shyly. "Nothing but a sore throat left."

"Good, good," she nodded, folding her legs under the table. At some point over the years, Ms. French's hemlines had begun creeping up her thighs, and it certainly hadn't gone without his notice. He'd gotten a glimpse at the lacy tops of her stockings once and a few examples of underpinnings in this realm forced Rumpelstiltskin to wonder if the Dark One kept her penchant for lace...closer, than in the Enchanted Forest. It was thoughts like that which would lead to nothing but trouble, so he avoided them...oh dear, she was still talking.

"Pardon?" he swallowed, hoping he hadn't been ogling.

"I said, did you hear Madam Mayor is going to be a mother?" Ms. French repeated, without complaint. Not ogling then. Phew. Wait--

"Are you serious?" Rumpelstiltskin blinked. "A mother? Is...I mean the father...it isn't...I mean did she and-"

Ms. French snickered into her coffee cup. "No, Graham is not a daddy. Thank goodness, poor man. Mayor Mills adopted a boy, she went to Boston to pick him up early this morning, I imagine she'll be back this evening some time."

"She can do that?" Rumpelstiltskin blurted, then backpedaled. "I-I mean she can adopt?"

He and Jefferson had gone out to the town line one night. Once. Rumpelstiltskin's cane slipped from under him on the one slick spot on the whole road, and Jefferson was stung by a bee when they'd tried crossing over. (Who knew he was allergic?) It was eleven o'clock at night so there was no one to witness Rumpelstiltskin's erratic first attempt at driving to the hospital with a wheezing hatter beside him.

They decided that the curse was engineered to repel Storybrooke inhabitants from leaving. Maybe Regina could get out because it was her curse...?

"Well, she had a little help, not to brag," Ms. French grinned. "I do have a law degree, I know how to handle an adoption efficently."

"I believe you," Rumpelstiltskin nodded, recalling clearly the time Belle had brought a baby back to the Dark Castle. She'd assured him her deals in newborns were sporadic, and since that was the only child he'd seen, Rumpelstiltskin assumed it was an embellished part of the Dark One mythology. "So...will we be required to pay our respects to the new mother?"

"Hey, I got her the kid," Ms. French held her hands up. "I'm done. You wanna knit them some baby thingies, you can go right ahead."

Although Rumpelstiltskin was rather fond of children, he doubted Regina would want his peasantly offerings. Best to just smile politely should she ever walk around with the babe in town.

Which turned out to be lunchtime, on Monday.

Ms. French sent him off with a request for a Monte Cristo and a cup of iced tea. Rumpelstiltskin was going to get a hamburger and tea, (the addition of ice to tea was an unexpected delight,) and put in his order with Ruby at the counter. As soon as he walked in, Rumpelstiltskin heard the unmistakable sound of a crying baby.

Rumpelstiltskin felt an unexpected pang of sympathy for Regina, watching her hover helplessly over the wailing infant. It had taken him weeks to figure out what each of Baelfire's cries meant. At least Regina benefited from the lack of a spouse glaring daggers into her head and muttering about how she was miserable too or how the baby hadn't cried this much before he got home-

That was a bit of projection there, but still.

Ruby took his order with a grin and a wink, going off to fill it. Rumpelstiltskin remained at the counter until he'd noticed the crying had yet to stop for more than a few short breaths, which was a pattern he recalled well from Baelfire as well. Like he was winding up for the next round of bawling.

Granny appeared to be trying to give Regina some advice, but Regina was snapping back at her. There was an abject look of terror in the former Queen's eyes, though, that brought about another pang of sympathy. She wanted to take care of the baby, and that meant a lot. She just didn't know what he needed. And was far too prickly and proud to ask, if he had to make a bet.

Regina picked her son up, then, patting his back. She seemed to be trying to soothe him when-

Oh dear. Rumpelstiltskin grabbed a handful of napkins and quietly crossed over to Regina's table, leaving them within her reach and nodding politely when she stared at him, a combination of mortification and surprise. Bae had, without fail, for the first four months of his life, always spit up a little bit whenever he finished a feeding.

**That** _**was one part of parenthood Rumpelstiltskin did not miss.** _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CHAPTER XXVI: In which family is discussed, Regina forgets someone, and Rumpelstiltskin does not forget something at all...


	26. XXVI. Please Stay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When we last left off, Regina adopted a baby boy that's the start of changes in Storybrooke...

Watching a condensation bead up and roll down the neck of the beer bottle, surrounded by Canadians that weren't much different than Americans in a bar setting, wasn't really that different from the taverns Neal's mother had spent all her time in before she died. No. Ran off. Whatever. She left.

August had called the cops on Emma.

Neal had agreed to leave Emma to her magical destiny, to not meet her at their rendezvous point. He had been expecting Emma to be upset he'd left...not go to lady prison.

 _That_ wasn't what he signed up for.

He'd already fenced the watches when August bothered to mention that, so he handed over the bug's keys and the money with instructions to give them to Emma so she wasn't completely up shit creek when she got out of jail. There was a sizable chunk of money there, enough for her to get a fresh start.

Damn August.

Logically, he knew that anybody who had a magic typewriter that had 'Your father is Rumpelstiltskin' wasn't entirely full of shit. August had that oily quality of a conman that Neal didn't quite trust, especially since he kept insisting he had to leave Emma. Because he was interfering with her destiny. That sounded like bullshit, Neal was going to ignore it...but:

_'Your father is Rumpelstiltskin.'_

Now something about that had struck Neal oddly.

Is. Not was. _Is_. Present-tense.

If August was even to be half believed, Emma was some kind of Chosen One destined to save everyone from an evil queen's curse. The Evil Queen? Neal didn't know much about that, but everyone had heard of The Evil Queen. Formerly just Queen Regina, the second wife of King Leopold and stepmother to Princess Snow White. Who according to Disney, shacked up with seven dwarves and married the creeper after a kiss of dubious consent.

And apparently had a baby with Prince No-Boundaries...that was Emma.

Neal took a sip from his beer, sighing through his nose. To anyone else it would sound insane, but with a few small-but-powerful pieces of evidence like that...Neal had to give. He stepped back. Emma was incredibly tough, if anyone could beat the fire out of an Evil Queen it was her. She was going to hate him though. Think he betrayed her. He couldn't hold on to her without being very selfish about it.

Mama, Papa, Emma, Wendy Darling probably fit in there, so did Morraine, and Chip and the Potts family...it would be nice to have someone in his life that he didn't have to let go of, or be left by.

* * *

Rumpelstiltskin was working the counter when Regina stormed in with a baby carrier. That wasn't so odd, really, Regina had only been a mother for about three days but from what he had observed she was trying her best. It was odd thinking that the same woman with the exotic hairstyles and scandalous gowns was a well-intentioned mother.

"Where is she?" Regina snapped, and Rumpelstiltskin stumbled off his stool in his haste to escape.

"M-Ms. French? I-I'll go get her, one moment," he babbled, scurrying into the backroom.He'd nearly bowled over Ms. French, who gently pushed him aside and took his place behind the counter instead with a cool expression as the mayor hissed, "You knew!"

"Knew what?" Ms. French blinked.

The baby whimpered from his place on the floor, and Rumpelstiltskin slipped into the backroom to make himself scarce.

He couldn't make out what all was said from his hiding place, nor did he really wish to. All he knew was that the Evil Queen was angry, (possibly sleep-deprived too,) and that as an angry mother, she was that much more dangerous. And Ms. French was something of an expert at deflecting Regina's temper, but still...he was a liability in that front room at the moment.

The gist of the one-sided argument was something about the boy's mother. Something about her was upsetting to Regina, and Ms. French didn't really understand why. Rumpelstiltskin had been brewing a pot of tea, convinced it was just Regina overreacting to something as she'd been increasingly frazzled for the past few years, but her voice was getting louder and louder and she started accusing Ms. French of doing something...

Wait a minute, she was kept yelling "eighteen years", something about her son's birth mother, how Ms. French had set her up...no.

How _Belle_ had set her up.

Rumpelstiltskin edged closer to the curtains just as Regina shouted: "I sacrificed _everything_ to build this life! And _nothing_ will tear me away from my revenge!"

He peered through the curtains to see the mayor snatching up the baby carrier and stomping for the door. Ms. French mainly looked confused, but Regina looked like she was going to snort fire out her nostrils.

"Henry goes back to Boston!" she snapped. "Tomorrow!"

Oh dear...

As soon as the bell stopped jangling, the tea kettle whistled. Rumpelstiltskin busied himself making the tea and poured out two cups just before Ms. French made her way into the back, sighing wearily.

"I have dealt with the mayor when she's crazy before, but she's never been that crazy," she muttered, sipping from the teacup Rumpelstiltskin offered her. "Good lord. I know women have to fight to gain a foothold in politics, but raising some teen mom's baby isn't going to ruin her career. You'd think it'd look better on paper, philanthropy and whatnot."

Rumpelstiltskin nodded dumbly, fidgeting with his chipped cup nervously. "I didn't hear that, what's wrong with the mother?"

"Oh, nothing as far as I know," Ms. French waved her hand, gracefully plopping into her office chair. "It was a closed adoption, Regina shouldn't have had access to anything about the girl anyway. Personally I didn't get what she was prattling on about, something about her being found in the woods outside of town eighteen years ago. Regina forgets I'm a transplant from Australia, I wasn't around eighteen years ago to know what 'significant event' there was."

Oh.

The curse struck.

* * *

Regina couldn't quite remember why she had taken Henry back to the adoption agency, only to return home with him anyway...something...well it couldn't be _that_ important, since they were here in her vault, safely in Storybrooke.

Hmm...well, she really shouldn't bring Henry down here anyway.

It wasn't a safe environment for a baby. And why had she left those ingredients out? She tucked them away in their proper place and then smiled when Henry burbled, kicking his fat little feet. "Come along my little prince," Regina cooed, catching her son's tiny hands.

Due to the nature of the curse, naturally, there were no new babies in Storybrooke. This sort of meant that everyone hovered over Henry in that adoring way people did for cute babies.

Which Henry Mills was.

Whale had assured her that Henry was in perfect health, so maybe his fussing earlier had been sort of like how horses got spooked by nervous riders. Well, babies and horses were markedly different, but that made sense in a way. Oh, Regina was still plenty nervous about doing something wrong, but she felt a little _less_ terrified. So Henry was less fussy. And Regina (and her ears) were very happy with that development.

Regina ordered a BLT from Granny's to-go, intending to go home and spend some time with her son. She sat at the counter waiting, and lo and behold, the mousy caretaker came hobbling in the door. He was wearing a blue button-down shirt and jeans, nothing very interesting or attention-grabbing, much like himself. He seemed confused, staring at her and Henry there at the counter, and his timid approach made Regina wonder if his "shy woodland creature" personality was something Belle found appealing.

There was no telling with that madwoman.

"M-Madam Mayor," Gold murmured quietly. "How d'you do?"

Well, Regina was in a good mood. She could speak to the commoners. "Very well," she nodded. "And you Mr. Gold?"

"F-fine," he stammered. "Uh...um..."

Henry giggled, flapping his hands. The soft baby toy in his hand was dropped to the floor near Gold's feet, and Regina sighed, looking at her, unapologetically cheerful son. Gold managed to pick the toy up with little struggle, (what part of his leg was messed up?) and gave it back to her. The gesture was kind, but Regina didn't trust the state of Granny's floors. Henry's hands weren't getting on that toy until it ran through the washing machine. And maybe the dryer...

"Thank you," she nodded, discreetly tucking the toy away in her bulky baby bag before turning to her son. "Henry, we do not throw things."

He gave her a gummy smile and another giggle.

Oh, he was too cute for his own good.

"Oh, that's a losing battle," Gold chuckled, looking fondly at Henry wiggling in his carrier. "This one seems a rather lively young lad. Henry, you said his name is?"

"Yes," Regina nodded. "Henry Mills."

"Henry Mills. Hm. How do you do, young Henry?"

Henry gurgled.

"Very good, then." Gold nodded.

Regina snorted as Ruby came up with her BLT in a greasy bag, and gave a wolfish (ha-ha, _irony_ ,) grin. "Hi Mr. Gold! What can I get you today?"

"Umm...a turkey sandwich and an iced tea, please."

"Comin' right up! Here's your BLT, no mayo, Mayor Mills," Ruby added, handing over the paper bag, then she made a funny face at Henry. "Have a nice day."

Yes. Yes they would, Regina thought with a smile. Her and Henry both.

* * *

Gold brought back her turkey sandwich and tea from Granny's. He'd made his own tomato and cheese sandwich, (he'd offered to make her one, which was sweet, but Lacey was jonesing for a turkey sandwich,) and they'd had lunch in the back of the shop. It was nice being able to talk to a guy who didn't want to sleep with her or who didn't belittle her or beg her not to repossess his car. Lacey dimly remembered a time when she ate lunch alone outside of Granny's...but she couldn't recall when she'd stopped that. It just sort of happened over time.

Time passed oddly around Gold. With everyone else, Lacey's day dragged on in a dull routine. But when she was talking to him, there was never enough time in the day. It was the strangest thing.

Regina had apparently decided to keep her baby, Henry, who Gold had more or less introduced himself too. Lacey had seen him interact with children before, he was great with the tiny humanoids. Where she had the ability to make small children cry on sight, Gold was a natural father. He had that rare ability to talk to children without making them feel like babies, or talk over their heads.

It was incredibly sad that his son had passed the way he had, it was no wonder Gold was so reclusive. Seeing other people walking around with their healthy, happy children must be a form of torture.

Hopefully Regina would be a better mother than her inauspicious beginnings suggested. Lacey was inclined to believe it was nervous first-time parent jitters that had their mayor convinced there was something wrong with her son, but Regina was an apple shy of a pie...

"I think she'll do alright," Gold said thoughtfully, absently sucking tomato juice off his fingers. "Babes are easier in some respects because they require unconditional love and need someone to care for them. It's when they start getting independant, that's when things get complicated. You still see them as small and helpless, but they need room to grow and learn. And you have to learn to let them go."

"That so?" Lacey asked, distracted by his pink tongue swiping over his glistening lips. Now that was just unfair. She wondered if it were a sweet tomato...

But Gold gave her an achingly sad smile, and any inappropriate thoughts in her mind withered. "Not sure I ever managed the trick, honestly."

Despite wondering about the taste of his lips mere moments ago, in that moment, Lacey wanted nothing more than to hug Gold. Just one hug, her arms wound around his shoulders, with no other goal than that to comfort.

It was entirely alien and she didn't think she liked it.

"I...am...I'm sorry."

"'Tis no matter."

Well that was a lie, Lacey could see it in his brown eyes it mattered very much to him, but she couldn't comfort him, she just couldn't, so she nodded and let it be. She swiped at a blob of mustard that dribbled on the wax paper her sandwich came in. "So...have you read Angels & Demons?"

Ugh...Lacey may have a reputation as a stone-cold bitch, but if she were caught off guard, she would revert to the awkward nerd she'd been as a preteen. The one that wanted to talk about books and stories and fictional characters when all the other girls were obsessed with cute boys and hot actors in trashy magazines. And after they just touched on his dead son?

"I wasn't sure what it was about," Gold said. "Is it any good?"

Oh thank god.

"Well, it's a real conspiracy theory sort of book, but that's sort of what makes it interesting," she replied, sitting straighter in her chair. "Y'know, Illuminati, symbology, the Vatican and assorted religious bullshit."

God wasn't so much bullshit, He was probably a chill guy that just wanted humans to not nuke each other off the earth. It was what bearded old men decreed was God's will and His ways and what people did in the name of their gods that was bullshit. Look at Mother Superior, for example, and her holier-than-though Catholicism.

Gold shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "I, um, I'm n-not well-versed in religion, but I don't think it's proper to offend a god..."

"It isn't an offense to God, though if you ask Mother Superior anything not written in the Bible is improper reading. It's more the people on the ground, y'know? How they covered up and altered history...if you believe it, of course."

An odd sort of smile, not sad, more...well it was an odd smile that softened Gold's face. His brown eyes were ancient and riveting, and at that moment he could have recited the alphabet and Lacey would have hung on his every word. Er, letter.

"I've had enough conspiracies in my life," he sighed. "I don't think I'd find a new set to be as interesting as you do, Ms. French."

Lacey wasn't sure why that sounded so...odd. She shrugged noncomittally, unwilling to seem more than passingly interested. And if she didn't fool anyone but herself, that was enough.

A little more chat was made before Gold had to go back to work in the front, and Lacey was left alone in her office.

**_That was the part she liked least about their shared lunches..._ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CHAPTER XXVII: Regina needs an able body, and Gold is available for the task.


	27. XXVII. Responsibility

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When we last left off, Regina settles into her new role as Henry's mother. More or less.

It felt like just last week Regina had been bottle-feeding a tiny baby. Now Henry was five months old and could sit upright in his little high chair, with a bit of support, and quite happily ate his cream of wheat with a dash of cinnamon. And messily. How did such a small thing make such a large mess?

No one would have believed that Regina owned a t-shirt, but it had become a bit of a necessity in order to spare her pricy designer clothes from her son's feeding time. And this land had the marvelous washing machine she could toss all of Henry's clothes and those t-shirts in, and then the dryer to finish their cleaning cycle.

In addition to messy, raising a child was also very tiring, but Regina couldn't say she minded that at the end of the day really. She had a purpose. Raising her son. Her mother had often left Regina in the care of a string of nannies and tutors with glassy eyes that came and went at a rather disturbing pace, but Regina couldn't understand how her mother chose to miss something as amazing as watching a child grow.

At least until this day in the first week of December, when necessity demanded it.

Regina had gathered that it was customary for parents to leave gifts for their children either beneath a tree or in oversized stockings hung on the mantle, under the guise of them being left by a magical visitor that gave presents to children while they were sleeping on Christmas Eve.

Regina would look into that when Henry was a bit older. Right now he was managing to sit up by himself and grasp at things with his little hands, maybe after she thoroughly investigated the meaning of that bizarre tradition and he could properly unwrap a gift they'd see about "Santa" next year.

Personally, Regina was just pleased to have someone to share the holiday with. She decided the ideal Christmas activity, given Henry's age, would be to stay home and watch one of those christmas movies on TV. She'd make some pudding, too, as a treat. Henry liked vanilla pudding and since he couldn't really chew on much, that seemed perfect.

The only wrench thrown into her holiday plans was that Regina forgot she was needed to attend a town meeting, several actually, to approve the plans of the town council and various people that wanted to set up displays.

Regina hadn't had a meeting since before she adopted Henry. Storybrooke was a quiet little community with not much happening, so she'd been bringing Henry to work with her. Now that she wasn't stressing him out with her stress over him, he was a very sweet, easy-going baby. It was no trouble at all, and should she need to go somewhere, she could temporarily leave him in the custody of her secretary. Who was a mother herself, Regina knew, and was too afraid of risking the mayor's wrath to drop the ball with Henry's care.

Only this time of year, the secretary always caught a cold without fail and took a leave of absence. And Regina had been so busy with Henry, who was a bit fussy because his first tooth was coming in, she hadn't noticed until she took a look at her calendar and saw that she had an appointment the very next day. And she couldn't bring Henry into that meeting, which meant she needed a babysitter.

Where the hell did you find a qualified babysitter on such short notice?

Because the meeting started at eleven o'clock on a week day, she couldn't rely on many people. Granny would definitely be a good choice but she had a diner to run. Mary-Margaret, sickening the thought was, would have done a good job too but she would be in school at the time. Quite honestly, Regina should have thought of who would mind her son earlier, and she resolved to find a regular babysitter if she could just get through tomorrow.

She decided to ask the handful of young mothers in town that always shunned Ashley Boyd, (Cinderella? Watching her son? Oh hell no, _that_ was never even an option,) for their opinion on the matter. Several were at the diner coaxing their little ones to eat that day while they were out running errands and Christmas shopping. One of them had suggested "Mrs. Schumacher", who if Regina was right, was famous for living in a discarded giant's shoe-turned-house in the old world. As a young lady, she'd apparently slain the giant and when she married, she and her husband converted it into a home for their brood of eight children, out of all of which only two remained living with her, older teens.

That sounded like a very strong reference and Regina would have been pleased with that, but one of those teens had the flu, and she was certainly not exposing Henry to that.

Regina decided to settle in for some lunch herself, arranging Henry in a highchair at the end of her table and giving him some soft little fingerfoods and his teething ring to keep him occupied while she ate her apple pancakes.

A child-development book Regina read said that babies that were starting to sit up unassisted and started grasping at things were starting to understand reactions. They had started reaching to be picked up, playing with things in one hand rather than fumbling with both. Apparently Henry was fascinated by the reaction he got by throwing his toys, as opposed to the uncoordinated dropping he'd done before.

Regina just swallowed a mouthful of pancakes when the colorful teething ring was tossed towards the door that was just opening. Henry gurgled as though he was pleased with how far it had gone...and part of Regina that wasn't sighing and wondering if she packed his other teething ring in her bag had to admit it was a mildly impressive throw.

At least with the teething rings she could wash it in the bathroom sink with a bit of soap and water rather than send it through the washer...

The man who had just come in was Mr. Gold, who Regina had grown rather lax towards because he was cowed and she had better things to do these days than lurk over his shoulder menacingly. Gold was also probably one of the few men Regina had met that didn't seem bothered by Henry when he cried in public, and never had some clever sports-themed "compliment" when Henry threw his toys. The others were Graham, Dr. Hopper, and one of the dwarves...the shy one...whatever the hell his name was. And the drunk one, but he didn't give a shit about much of anything in general.

"Madam Mayor," Gold said quietly, handing her the teething ring he had retrieved. "I believe this belongs here?"

"Thank you," Regina nodded politely, wrapping it in a napkin and pulling out the back-up ring when Henry started fussing for the dirty toy. Crisis averted.

Gold watched Henry gnawing on his ring and seemed confused for a moment, then he smiled. "Is that something for him to chew on while he's teething?" he asked, sounding like he was marvelling at the colored plastic toy.

"Yes..." Regina said slowly, sizing Gold up. As Henry was a charming little one, most people were fond of him, Gold being no exception. He didn't react surprised when Henry spit up or made a fuss, it was possible he had experience... "You seem to know a bit about children."

"I-I know a bit..." he said, suddenly looking like a spooked horse. Regina wondered if he'd bolt or not. "I'm hardly an expert-"

"I'm not looking for an expert, I need a sitter to watch Henry tomorrow for about four hours."

Gold faltered.

"A s-sitter? M-me?"

Regina swept her eyes up and down Gold again. He was a clever little mouse of a man, but she knew he was afraid of her. Everyone was afraid of the Evil Queen. Fear was a useful tool though, terrified people rarely stepped outside their boundaries. He had some affection for children that wasn't untoward, apparently knew enough to recognize Henry was teething, and surely he of all people knew best not to cross her.

"My meetings start at eleven, I probably won't be available until closer to three. I'll even talk to your... _employer_ , to work things out."

Gold, to his credit, did not look like he was going to faint, at least. He swallowed thickly, glanced from Regina to Henry, and back to her. "I-I'll lose a day of work. Y-you'll have to pay me, I can't afford a missing day. An' I'll need to talk to Ms. French."

Hmm. Fair enough.

"So be it. Ms. French has my number, whenever you're ready."

* * *

Ms. French had laughed, at first, when Rumpelstiltskin told her: "Mayor Mills asked me to babysit for her."

When she realized he wasn't joking, she looked at him like he'd said: _"I need to eat a large, smelly shoe."_

"You're serious?"

"Yes ma'am."

"Why would she ask you?"

 _'It's_ _short notice. Plus, she has a secret dungeon under the hospital within which I may remain trapped. Or possibly killed or driven to insanity, probably both actually. It's basically blackmail and I'll have to accept, and I'm dead if Henry has so much as a hair out of place, I'm sure.'_

"It's short notice," he said instead. "I'm available."

"Uh-huh..." Ms. French did not look too terribly convinced. "You're not in any trouble with her, are you Gold? Legally, financially...?"

Her concern would have been touching if the truth wouldn't have convinced her he was insane. So he pasted on a smile and shook his head, saying he only wanted her permission, that he could still work a half-day if she needed him.

Ms. French conceded and the deal was struck; At a quarter to eleven Regina trotted in with Henry and a large bag full of his things, sitting the boy dressed in a romper covered with little yellow ducklings on the counter while she fished out a scrap of paper from her pocket with a list of contact numbers. Her celluar phone number, her office number, the town hall's number, hospital, Graham's number.

Regina pressed a kiss to Henry's plump little cheek, taking a moment to rub away the smear of red. "Bye-bye Henry, I'll be back for you as soon as I can."

Ms. French was watching from a distance, smirking like she wished she had a camera. "Will you be flying by broomstick, then?"

Regina sent her an icy look that only made Ms. French's smile widen. And made Gold wish she would antagonize the mayor when he was in her crosshairs.

He pulled Henry just a little closer to him on the counter when Regina snarled, "No, but I wish you'd refrain from bargaining away my son while he's in your employee's charge."

"So you do see the irony in bringing your son to a pawnshop while you're at a meeting, then?"

 _'Please keep proving there's no magic here curse,'_ Rumpelstiltskin prayed, letting Henry play with the pad of yellow sticky notes kept on the counter. _'Please don't start throwing fireballs. Think of the boy. Think of_ me _...'_

Regina turned her flashing eyes to Rumpelstiltskin, her gaze dropping down to her son only once.

"Please take very good care of Henry," she said. Her tone of voice was equal parts request and demand, and he could only nod dumbly.

And that was how little Henry Mills was entrusted into the spinner-turned-caretaker-turned-shopkeeper's care.

Ms. French had shooed him upstairs, insisting, "It simply ruins the atomsphere of my frightening abode to have a baby giggling within it", and Rumpelstiltskin was glad he'd taken care to babyproof his flat. Henry wiggled around on the rug, chewing on his toys that Rumpelstiltskin put down for him and generally making himself at home. He was a bit too young to crawl, but he seemed to like wiggling around on his tummy which meant it wouldn't be long.

It was perhaps his innate fondness for children making him soft, his loneliness, or simply how much he missed his own son, but he couldn't help but think little Henry looked a bit like Bae as an infant. His eyes weren't quite brown, more a grayish color. When Rumpelstiltskin picked Henry up to give him his lunch, his eyes watered a bit when Henry's little hand grasped at his nose.

"Aye, it's an ugly nose, isn't it?" he chuckled wetly, indulging himself for a moment by pressing said ugly nose against the babe's crown, breathing in his milky scent. "That we agree on."

Ms. French had come up just after Rumpelstiltskin had cleaned Henry up and intended to scavenge up a meal of his own, a bag of Granny's in her hand. She had, to Rumpelstiltskin's knowledge, never stepped foot in his flat and seemed to hesitate when he invited her in. But she insisted he eat his hamburger, and that she could watch Henry for all of fifteen minutes for him.

Something twisted in Rumpelstiltskin's chest at the image Ms. French- _Belle_ ,-made, holding a baby. She had his now ancient-by-all-standards television set on, watching the twelve o'clock news while Henry slept and Rumpelstiltskin ate. He mumbled something about her not having to watch Henry, which was a mistake, because she turned to look at him and smirked and that memory was filed away too.

"I've babysat before, Gold, it's not trouble. Babysitting was a great way to earn extra money in school. You put the tot to bed, then you can study. And eat other people's food for free."

Rumpelstiltskin wondered if that was true, or if it was the curse slightly distorting Belle's famous baby-deals. She had been fond of the one babe that made their way through the Dark Castle, enough to find it a cozy home. It drove him to distraction after Belle-Ms. French,-left him and Henry alone again, returning to her "frightening abode" downstairs where she remained for the rest of the day.

Henry was a remarkably well-behaved baby considering he was the son of the Evil Queen. Well, Regina was less of an evil monarch and more of a cold politican/intimidating mother now, but still. He of course screamed when he took objection to his state-be it a soiled nappy or a bit of peckishness, or indigestion,-but that was to be expected.

He brought Henry downstairs, who was quite asleep at the time and posed no threat to anyone, at a quarter to three, and not more than five minutes later Regina made a beeline through the door towards him.

The handing-off of the baby was done without incident, though it wasn't lost on Rumpelstiltskin that Regina subtly checked Henry over for any signs of foul play. Then her eyes turned on him, regarding him carefully. Whatever she was seeing must've passed muster, because she shifted Henry gently around until she could pull out an envelope.

"Here you are, thank you for your time Mr. Gold."

Huh. Well. That was easy.

Now, that was the first time, but it was not the last. Regina enlisted Gold's help several times as Henry started growing from a helpless baby to one that was prone to crawling around and exploring things. Now as a person, Gold didn't trust Regina as far as he could throw her. (Which is to say, not far.) But as a mother, he had a sort of understanding: It didn't matter that she was the Evil Queen and he'd essentially been an enemy spy, (what a wild revelation that was to have one night when he was knitting himself a pair of socks,) as far as Henry was concerned, she was the conscientous mother and he was available in a pinch.

It was the most civil blackmail he'd ever known.

* * *

Emma got out of prison and found, to her surprise, that Neal had left her their car.

No, just _the_ car.

That put her ahead of some of the women in the halfway house they placed her in after her release. Since there was no money to go with it, (of course not,) Emma made her gas money offering rides to those other women. There was some attempts at convincing her to get a taxi license, which sounded like a great way of getting stabbed by a crazy person, so Emma declined and got a shitty fast-food job instead until her time was up in the home, and then she jumped into the car and rolled out of town.

Emma had seriously considered selling the Bug. For one thing, it looked like a toy. Big, round, yellow. Like a lemon on wheels. It didn't suit Emma's attitude at all. For another, now that it was registered in her name and all, that was responsibility and Emma didn't feel up to being a responsible adult yet.

And the rotten cherry on top was that it was a perfect reminder that Neal had used her as his scape-goat to get away clean with his stolen watches.

Why did he leave her the car? Guilt? Probably. Emma didn't know what it was exactly, but there was something about Neal that made her think he didn't like owing anyone anything.

Well, she thought that once. Now she was too furious and hurt to think kindly.

In the end, Emma kept the car for two reasons. The most practical and obvious being that she needed a car, and there was plenty of room to live in there. She knew that.

The second, private reason was that even though he screwed her over...the car was innocent. They talked about the watches in a park, she walked to the airport and their rendezvous point, the car hadn't been anywhere near the whole fiasco. Emma had good memories, probably _her best_ memories, connected to this Volkswagen. Meeting Neal when she stole his stolen car, using it as their getaway vehicle in their shoplifting, sleeping in it, fooling around in the backseat like normal young people might. It was probably where Emma got pregnant, come to think of it...

No.

Better thought: Don't think about it.

No.

Emma didn't think about the kid often. It was cleaner that way, because she knew she'd made the best choice. She couldn't be a mother-eighteen, no diploma, no home, no _nothing_ ,-and the boy needed his best chance. Even if it wasn't with her.

Once in awhile, she'd wonder if he was taken care of, if he'd found a nice home with adults who cared about their charges, or if he'd been taken in as a way to get a nice government check. As someone who grew up in the system in too many of the latter, she hoped he got adopted by a nice family early that wouldn't send him back. Sometimes it was better not knowing where you came from...

_**And sometimes it made you feel more like an orphan than ever.** _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter XVIII: Henry is growing up quickly and Gold realizes his mother may be the key to breaking the curse...
> 
> This story ends with Chapter XXX. Or Chapter 30 for ye who don't read numeral. Prepare thyself!


	28. XXVIII. Sunny Days

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When we last left off, Gold began babysitting the Evil Queen's son, though he believes all avenues for breaking the curse have been exhausted...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I HAVE 3,000+ HITS ON THIS STORY! THANK YOU ALL FOR READING! TWO MORE CHAPTERS TO GO!

Henry's third birthday had just flown by, and despite muddling along for eighteen years, Regina almost wished time would slow down. Her little prince was growing so fast! It felt like he'd only just started crawling, now he was toddling around on his sturdy little legs and talking and refusing to eat green vegetables because they were icky.

While Mrs. Schumacher was the usual babysitter, Mr. Gold was Henry's favorite. Regina was surprisingly comfortable with that. She had control over Gold should he get an ideas, (he never did,) and control was a good feeling. And for all he was scared of his own shadow, he had a few decent tips and tricks when it came to fussy toddlers.

Regina hoped that Henry was a bit more sensible as a three-year-old than a two-year-old that refused to wear shoes and always managed to get them off his feet when she wasn't looking...

One of her son's more manageable quirks was that he absolutely refused to go to sleep without a bedtime story. Regina had taken Granny's advice about babies and stories to heart and had taken to murmuring nonsense to Henry when she was trying to soothe him. Now he simply would _not_ go to bed until he'd heard at least one story, and if he was still alert enough, he might even wheedle for another.

So, Regina had a stack of children's books that continued to grow. (The library may have been useful for this purpose.) Henry had a fondness for colorful pictures so Regina had purchased one book featuring lots of bright primary colors and lively illustrations, depicting a cautious blue creature and an obnoxious red one and their disagreement over laying eyes on the monster at the end of the book. She found that the two characters starred prominently in a children's television show called "Sesame Street" that was one of the least sickening options for educational programming in Henry's age range.

Henry took to Sesame Street like a duck to water, and Regina had purchased two or three VHS tapes for Henry's second birthday. He made himself comfortable on her lap when they settled down to watch one tape, and everything went along swimmingly...until one skit aired.

There was a puppet frog dressed in a trench coat and little hat, acting as a news reporter. He was standing outside of a tower on the set, announcing that Prince Charming was about to rescue Rapunzel. That in and of itself was inaccurate, but not threatening exactly. (Especially given that there was only one Prince Charming, despite how this world affixed it to any dashion hero on horseback.) However...

It occurred to Regina, only then, that she was known only as the evil stepmother that gave Snow White the poisoned apple in this world. They'd stripped her even the dignity of a name, and the reason for her hatred of the fairest of them all. The story wasn't even complete, it ended with Charming waking Snow and saying "they lived happily ever after" without going into her banishment or her curse or their child, Belle wasn't there, nor their council of do-gooders. It was rubbish from an educational standpoint, and even without that, Regina was paralyzed with fear that one day Henry would read it.

For the time being, since Henry could only sing off-key with Big Bird during the Alphabet Song and knew C was for cookie, she didn't have to worry about Henry reading that. And she would never read that awful story to him, either. But she had recently renewed her... _association_ with Graham, so for now she scheduled every other Sunday between four and six for Henry to be in Gold's care, and on that late August day after Regina had seen the tape, she had told Henry to go pick out a new book for Mr. Gold to read to him.

While her son lingered by the children's books, Regina turned to Gold. He eyed her warily, because for all Regina trusted him not to hurt her son, she knew neither of them forgot the natural order of things: She was the Queen, he was the peasant, and no one would care if she snuffed out his existence in this town.

"It's come to my attention how this world thinks of the villain in the story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves," she began almost conversationally. "I don't think I have to remind you how damaging it can be if you try to turn my son against me."

Gold nodded quickly. "Of course. I-I'd never."

"Good," Regina smiled thinly, just as Henry came trotting back with a large book featuring some kind of black and white cat and a striped top hat. "Glad we understand each other. Okay baby," she knelt down to her son's level then, brushing his hair off his forehead for a kiss. "Be good for Mr. Gold, I'll come back for you and then we'll eat dinner. Okay?"

"L'sana?"

"Lasagna it is," Regina agreed, accepting a tiny-but-fierce hug. "Bye-bye Henry, I love you."

"Bye Mommy! I love you!" Henry waved as she left, automatically going to hold Gold's free hand.

* * *

Henry was three now. And he knew lots of things.

He could count all the way up to ten, (sometimes twelve,) and that Pongo was a friendly spotty dog that liked people-cookies. And he knew his mommy was a very important lady as the mayor, but she also was the bestest Mommy in the world. And he knew the alphabet letters even if he couldn't quite write them down very well yet. He was practicing though, and her had Mr. Gold helping him.

Mr. Gold was probably the smartest man in town. Maybe the world. He lived in a bookshop, and people with lots of books were very smart. Henry had known Mr. Gold forever, ever since he was a baby, and so he made himself right at home in the apartment on his favorite patch of floor with his coloring book and crayons. This one was from Mommy, but Mr. Gold had given Henry a blank notepad and crayons that were for practicing his letters on. And numbers.

Compared to other grownups, Henry thought Mr. Gold was short. And skinny. And his brown hair was sort of long, and Henry thought he could remember yanking on it sometimes when he was a baby. That was rude of him. Mr. Gold was the only person Henry knew in town to walk with a cane, and something was wrong with his foot. He said he hurt it a long time ago, and that it didn't heal up right.

Henry supposed nobody put Band-Aids on it. Band-Aids made most any hurt feel better, especially the cool ones that looked like tattoos and stayed on in the bath.

While Henry colored, Mr. Gold sat in his armchair and started knitting. He could make a lot of things: Hats, scarves, mittens, socks, blankets. This looked like a sweater, a sort of blue-gray color like the clouds turned in the winter. Mr. Gold would probably wear it when it started getting cold.

When Henry was finished coloring in his picture, he put up his crayons, (Mommy told him frequently to put his crayons away so they wouldn't get lost,) and then clambered up onto Mr. Gold's lap to watch him work. He knit faster than Mrs. Schumacher, especially if he was only working in one color like this. It looked like he was making a sleeve, Henry thought, since it was too skinny to go around your body, even if you were Mr. Gold.

After awhile, Henry started getting sleepy watching the knitting needles click together and the sleeve growing longer and longer. He wriggled around, rubbing his eyes, and suddenly Mr. Gold stopped and laughed, letting his knitting fall aside and giving Henry a hug. Mr. Gold smelled sort of like the store downstairs, musty and papery, but Henry didn't mind. Some people just smelled unique. Like Mommy smelled like apples and her perfume. Mr. Gold wasn't as soft as Mommy, but he was warm and the book-smell was nice...

"Up you get, Henry," Mr. Gold said, nudging Henry. "I can't let you fall asleep now or you won't sleep at all tonight."

"'m not sleepy," Henry protested, rubbing his eyes again.

"Good. Because I think I need some help making cookies, don't you think?"

Henry slid off Mr. Gold's lap and scurried into the kitchen. There was a stick of butter on the counter already, so Henry dragged a chair from the table around so he could be high enough to help.

Mr. Gold was smart and he knew lots. Lots of stories, lots of important things like scribbling a blue crayon over a yellow one made a green color, and lots of numbers and letters, and lots of different ways to make cookies. Today they made something he read aloud as "Spiced Buttermilk Cookies" that used buttermilk. It didn't have butter in it, but Mr. Gold put a dash of something in the milk that made it taste smell funny and he set it aside until they needed it.

When the dough was made, it didn't smell funny despite the milk that went in there. It tasted yummy, actually, and the cookies turned out to be soft and shaped like tiny hills.

Mr. Gold washed the dishes they used while the cookies baked, and his oven didn't have a glass panel like Mommy's, so Henry couldn't watch the cookies bake. He went over to the window that faced out over the street instead, looking out at the clock tower.

The clock didn't keep time, it stayed still. Actually, unless someone was walking on the street or a bird flew by, it looked like nothing moved outside the window at all. Henry wondered why no one fixed the clock, but maybe they were all too small to make such a big clock work. And it was at the top of the library, and no one went into the library. All the windows were covered up, so that Henry could never see the books inside.

At least...he thought there were books inside. Libraries were supposed to have free books inside, right?

The oven beeped, and Mr. Gold was taking the cookies out, so Henry stopped looking out the window then.

The cookies had spread out, and smelled yummy. Henry wondered if all the cookies Cookie Monster ate were cooled off, because if he tried to eat cookies off a hot pan he'd burn his fingers. Or maybe not because he had blue fur on his hands.

"Would Cookie Monster burn his hands?"

"Mm?"

"Mommy says everything out the oven's really hot, so wouldn't it burn to eat cookies now?"

Mr. Gold didn't watch TV, but he had a few Sesame Street books. There were books for everything. "Mm...I suppose being a Cookie Monster has advantages. Not burning your fingers on cookies, perhaps."

Carefully, Mr. Gold moved the cookies off the pan onto a tray, and picked one up when he was finished. It must've cooled off enough to pick up, and smoke rose up where he broke it apart so it was still really hot. Henry crawled up onto his chair again to reach the counter while Mr. Gold got a glass and some not-nasty milk that was cold. He taught Henry how to dip cookies in the milk to make them cool enough to eat. Mr. Gold was very smart.

And the cookies were very yummy.

Mommy said it was very rude to eat cookies like Cookie Monster, but Henry would have if he could have. As it was, he couldn't eat more than the one cookie anyway, because he hadn't had dinner yet. Mr. Gold put the cookies on a plate and put tin foil over them so that he could take some home when Mommy arrived, and then he and Henry sat at his table to work on Henry's letters.

Today they were practicing the letter E, which was a bunch of lines so it wasn't too hard as long as Henry got them all straight. One on the top, one on the bottom, one that went up and down on the...left side, and another line right across the middle. The trick was in making it the same each time, which Mr. Gold said would come with practice. Everything came with practice.

"E is for...elephants," Henry said, which was another part of their lessons, learning what letters went with what. Henry couldn't read much, just little words. Elephant was a very big word, he could tell.

"E is for...ears," Mr. Gold smiled, tugging on Henry's round ears, which made him giggle.

He shook off the hands and said, "E is for...eggs!"

"E is for...excellence."

"E is for...eat!"

"E is for... _egads_ , are you hungry lad?"

"A is for a little bit," Henry said, smiling at his cleverness.

"That's not quite..." Mr. Gold paused a moment, then shrugged. "Alright. Well, your mother should come around to take you home soon."

And Mr. Gold was right, because it wasn't too much longer before the phone rang. Mommy called to say she was coming to get Henry, so he had to help Mr. Gold clean up his mess and find his shoes and be ready to leave. Sometimes Henry wasn't ready to leave, but he was really hungry and he wanted to show Mommy the picture he colored in of a dog that looked like Pongo and then he could eat more cookies.

Mr. Gold walked Henry outside when Mommy's car pulled up, and got him into the car. He gave Mommy the cookie plate and Henry crowed that he'd helped make them, and Mommy nodded and thanked Mr. Gold and said goodbye. Henry said goodbye too, and Mr. Gold waved when the car drove away.

When Mommy got them home, she put the lasagna on the table on two plates, (she must've gone to Granny's,) and Henry ate and told her about his visit with Mr. Gold. He colored, Mr. Gold was making a sweater, and they made cookies, and he was showing Henry his letters. Mommy was impressed that Henry was learning to write and said he'd be the smartest little boy in kindergarten soon.

"Can't Mr. Gol' be my teacher? He's smart."

"But he's _not_ a teacher, sweetie," Mommy said. "Children need to learn from teachers. You don't have to be in kindergarten yet, not until next year maybe, you'll see."

Henry wasn't so sure he'd like school. He'd seen schools in books and on TV before, and sometimes it looked fun, but there weren't any parents around and if he was at school, when would he get to see his mommy, or Mr. Gold, or Pongo, or do anything else?

He asked Mommy and she promised him that he wouldn't just have school, and that they would handle whatever fears he had together. Just like they scared away the monsters under the bed and in the closet with flashlights together. And that made Henry feel a little less scared. Though he'd still rather have Mr. Gold as his teacher.

* * *

Nothing was a greater indicator of the stillness in Storybrooke, or rather how quickly the years were passing them by, then Henry was.

Rumpelstiltskin knew babes grew quickly. Bae had gone from a tiny infant to a stumbling toddler to an active little boy in three blinks, it felt like. And since Henry was the only thing aging in Storybrooke, it was all the more apparent.

One day, out of the blue, Rumpelstiltskin ran into Jefferson at the grocery store. They had seen each other in passing, and found odd moments like this to chat, but for the most part they acted like strangers now.

Still...Rumpelstiltskin thought it was important to pass this along: Henry Mills was growing up, and there was something about his mother that scared Regina.

As predicted, Jefferson was _extremely_ interested in that.

"How so?" he asked in a quiet voice. "I can't imagine Regina keeping anything that might threaten her little kingdom, why didn't she get rid of him?"

"I think she was going to, but something changed her mind. She doesn't act frightened anymore, I'm not sure. But I heard her screaming about it back when she first brought Henry to Storybrooke. His mother was eighteen years old when he was born Jefferson. She'd be about twenty-one now, wouldn't she?"

Jefferson's blue eyes widened a bit. It was early October then, creeping up on the twenty-first anniversary of the curse.

"You don't think...you don't think that his mother is a key to breaking the curse, do you? How?"

"I'm not sure. I don't know enough about curses, just that there's a way to break every one of them. Maybe Henry's birth mother has something to do with this one. What I don't understand is how she'll get into Storybrooke to help, no one gets in or out. Unless you're Regina, I suppose."

Jefferson hesitated. "I-it could be like my hat. See, you could only jump between dimensions with the same number coming as there was going. Regina cast the curse, but she was able to bring Henry through, right? And those Flynns years back? Maybe we can't get out, but other people can get in?"

"I don't know how you'd test that theory, but that doesn't sound bad."

Apparently, neither did Jefferson know either, judging from the face he pulled. "Well...it gives us something to keep an eye on. I'll let you know if I see anything."

Rumpelstiltskin nodded and they parted ways. He wouldn't be too surprised if Jefferson started camping out by the town line now, but despite his unraveling logic, Jefferson was a clever man. He probably had something up his sleeve. Maybe.

Now what was he himself going to do?

* * *

For twenty-one years, come October, Jefferson had been trapped in this goddamned town, separated from his daughter, and at the complete mercy of the Evil Queen's whims.

Quite frankly his patience was running thin.

Since Gold had, likely wisely, called off their association, Jefferson was left at odds with himself. Some days it was easier to let Storybrooke!Jefferson stay in charge so that he didn't have to remember his daughter or their life together. Some days that got so sickeningly repetitive Jefferson went for long walks around town in the middle of the night seeing if he could dig up any new secrets.

The library had been boarded up the entire time. Jefferson had picked the lock one night on the door and walked in, which was very underwhelming.

Nothing but newspaper-covered windows, dust and cobwebs on everything, a musty-stale smell in the air, and rows and rows of books in the abandoned building. It was rather symbolic that these stories were kept away from the townsfolk, representing their missing memories and cut-off happy endings. There was nothing of interest at all in the library, not at the desk, not on the creaky carts, not on the shelves, not in the corners, not in the locked up back offices. Not upstairs in the caretaker's apartment that was nothing but a big empty front room with hardwood floors, two tiny bedrooms, and a tiny bathroom with not much more than a tiny porcelain sink, a toilet, and a shower-tub that even Belle might find challenging to lay in.

Nothing of interest...

Except for the elevator.

It didn't fit the cheap, builder-grade decor of the rest of the library. It looked elaborate and expensive, out of place with it's wood and iron doors with exposed mechanisms, a large wheel and more doohickeys on the either side. There had to have been something special about this elevator...

But a quick ride upwards showed it just led to the caretaker's apartment, and higher up to the clock tower. It was frightening up there, so silent Jefferson could hear his own breathing, the gears all still and the clock face looking out on an utterly dead town. He didn't feel inclined to go poking around in the basement, where he imagined plastic chairs and old books lay mouldering under the town, so he rode back downstairs, locked up, and left to go home.

It was an unexpected delight to have to speak with Gold in the grocery store in the following week. Jefferson was vaguely aware that Gold had been blackmailed in some capacity into watching Henry Mills, (cute kid, nasty mommy,) which was what he spent his Sunday's doing while Regina comitted coercive rape against Graham. At this point, Jefferson wondered if Regina was aware of the atrocity she was doing weekly, or if she genuinely thought the poor Sheriff was her boyfriend. Lover. Booty call. He wasn't that, at any rate.

Jefferson had bought a telescope when he temporarily took up bird-watching, (god _and_ gods he was bored!) and found that he could see directly into the Grace family's dining room.

It was a masochistic from of torture, and outsider might add obsessive and creepy, too, but Jefferson was desperate for any glimpse he could catch of his Grace these days. His neighbors were perfectly pleasant people in the old world, just the sort he trusted with Gracie's care, and in Storybrooke they were arguably one of the happiest family units, but she wasn't Paige, she was Grace, not their daughter, his, and Jefferson had waited over two decades to return to his little girl damn it!

Now, Jefferson bought a few more telescopes and set them in windows facing town and overlooking the woods and road leading past his house. He had an excellent view of almost everything now, and planned to keep a bird's-eye view on everything now that he had a lead: Something about little Henry's birth mother had frightened Regina, so much so that according to Gold, the Queen had burst from behind the mask of Mayor Mills and railed against Ms. French in her shop.

Henry and his birth parents had been from the outside world, and while Jefferson didn't know how to get word outside of Storybrooke yet, this could mean that the little prince was an important part of the puzzle. Maybe his being in Storybrooke would lure his mother there, eventually?

**_At any rate: Whatever was a threat to Regina was a delight for Jefferson._ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter XXIX: A problem for Henry arises that Gold regrets not anticipating...


	29. XXIX. Stone Soup and Straw On the Camel's Back

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When we last left off, Henry Mills is growing up quickly. Too quickly...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The final chapter goes up on January 1st! (Here's hoping 2017 sucks less...)

After Henry's fifth birthday, Mommy took him shopping for school supplies he'd need in kindergarten. A box of crayons, pencils, a Spiderman backpack and a Scooby-Doo lunchbox, erasers. That was all well and good but when the first day of school actually arrived, Henry was terrified.

He clung to Mommy's hand when she walked him inside and refused to let go. Mommy bent down in front of him and fussed with his hair, wiping some Pop-Tart crumbs off his shirt.

"I don't want to go," he said as firmly as he could. He sounded like he was going to cry though.

"Oh Henry, sweetheart," Mommy smiled, squeezing his hands. "There is nothing to be afraid of."

"What if the other kids don't like me?"

"Then they're a bunch of sillies that can't see how special you are," she replied firmly. Then she poked his tummy and that made Henry giggle. "Just give it a try. You're going to make friends, and learn new things, and have lots of fun."

"Will you take me home if I don't?"

Mommy lifted one eyebrow and pursed her red lips together in that _'don't argue with me'_ way she had sometimes. She kissed his cheek and drew him into a hug though, and Henry buried his face into her dark hair.

"I promise, my little prince."

It turns out that Mommy was right, though. Once Henry shuffled into the kindergarten, put his things in his cubby, and found his seat, he did have fun. Henry was one of the smarter kids that knew the alphabet already, and that made him cool. He made friends with Jack and Georgie and Muffy, and got to snack on animal crackers and apple juice, and played tag on the playground. One day in arts and crafts they made play-dough and pressed their hands in it, plaques the teacher called them, and Henry gave his to Mommy for her birthday and she loved it enough to put it on her desk at home.

Henry had never really had friends before, it was just he, Mommy, Mommy's friend Graham, and Mr. Gold. And they were all grownups. He had a lot of fun with his new friends. Sometimes he played at their houses (no one came over to his house though,) and had sleepovers with Jack and Georgie. Every kid in kindergarten was invited to every other kid's birthday, and that was lots of fun too. When kindergarten was over and summer vacation started, though Henry was just as happy to take a break. He didn't have to get up early, and there was no homework.

Mommy took Saturdays off now to play with Henry. They would build pillow forts and go out to the park, get an ice cream cone, eat dinner at Granny's. Something fun, just the two of them. And sometimes, Mommy took him on Saturdays to Mr. Gold's bookshop to buy a new story. Actually the shop belonged to Ms. French, who was shorter than even Mr. Gold, with lots of makeup around her blue eyes and heels almost as tall as Ruby's. Mommy said to keep away from Ms. French because she was a bad lady, but Henry didn't think she was bad. Mr. Gold liked her, at least. Sundays evenings Henry always went to stay with Mr. Gold for a few hours, same as he had since he could remember.

Henry turned six in August. His party was nice and he got some cool presents, and he was looking forward to taking his new Batman backpack to school with him in the first grade.

But when Henry walked into the first grade classroom, (which wasn't as colorful as kindergarten and had real desks instead of tables and chairs,) he didn't see a single familiar face. Jack, Georgie, Muffy, nobody Henry knew was in there. All the first graders were his age, but how could they be his age when all his friends had turned six like he did last year? Where were they?

Henry told the teacher he wasn't in the right classroom. He kept telling her that until she called Mommy.

Mommy was not very happy to be called down to the school, and she told Henry quite plainly that he belonged in first grade. "You're a first grader now Henry, you're too old for kindergarten. Just sit down in class, it won't be so bad, you'll see."

First grade was not too bad, true. And at recess, Henry could see his kindergarten friends. But something wasn't right about it. Henry was taller than Muffy where they used to be the same height like Jack and Henry were now. Georgie was still having trouble with the alphabet even though Henry thought he figured it out already. And they acted like they didn't even know Henry when he went up to them. It took the whole week until they would play with him again, and Henry didn't want to go back to the first grade class on Monday. He told Mommy that on Friday when she brought him home.

"No, you're going back to first grade on Monday."

"But-"

"Henry, you have to go to school. That's just the way it is, children go to school. Now be a big boy, it isn't that bad."

"But-"

"Henry Mills, I am your mother and I decide what's best for you! Now go to your room, I'll call you when dinner's ready."

* * *

Despite his constant reading and a conversation a few years back about Jules Verne, Rumpelstiltskin had never gotten around to reading Around the World in 80 Days. He was almost finished with 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, (Nemo likely would've gotten along well with Belle, morally gray and championing his own causes the way he did,) and decided that would be his next book. Ms. French had promised it was a solid story, the stoic and ever-prepared Phileas Fogg, his trusty acrobatic valet with a name almost as bad as "Rumpelstiltskin", and a fine lady from India that would marry Mr. Fogg by the book's end because she was fond of the man and vice-versa.

Sounded good, at least.

And he needed something to occupy his time...

It was going on twenty-three years since the curse began. The only changes were that Henry was in school. He came over on Sundays and read the simply children books all by himself now, but still liked to be told new stories. He picked out a storybook once, but by agreement with the Evil Queen, they skipped Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. And his story. And for the sake of Henry's innocence, the Hans Christian Andersen original telling of the Little Mermaid.

Henry was a small boy for six. His eyes were hazel eyes, and he had a prominent-though-still-small nose, and shaggy dark hair that always seemed to grow faster than Regina could keep it trimmed. He was under the impression that "Mr. Gold" was the smartest person in Storybrooke, which was flattering though untrue, and as the only other man in Henry's life was Graham sporadically, Rumpelstiltskin supposed that Henry looked to him as a father figure of sorts. Also flattering, but at times, the bright-eyed child reminded him so much of Baelfire at that age it felt like a knife twisting in his broken heart.

There was no way of knowing where Bae was. Or if he was...okay. Rumpelstiltskin took the comfort in the fact that if he didn't know differently, he could keep thinking that his son was alive and well somewhere. Although with twenty-three years passing...Bae would have had to have been almost forty by now. That thought made him dizzy and weak-kneed, and he tried not to think about it too much. Ignorance was bliss.

Until reality set in, at least...

Saturday was going along as well as it ever did. Dr. Whale had already come through on Friday to pawn his pocket watch for his weekend of fun. He ran short on funds ever three weeks or so, probably between paychecks if Rumpelstiltskin had to guess. Leroy had pawned a diamond ring an hour ago to fund his own drinking binge as he did every other week. Next week he'd have scraped the money together to get it out of hock, resolutely not explaining where he got the ring or why he didn't just sell it. The curse didn't fill in all the details of a real lifetime's worth of memories, he probably didn't know himself. Maybe something he'd had in the old world? Why would a dwarf have a diamond ring though?

Rumpelstiltskin's hand itched for a pen to scribble down his ideas, but he resisted. For the moment.

Then the door opened and a small intruder slipped in with a quiet tinkle of the bell.

Rumpelstiltskin came around the counter, frowning. "Henry? What on earth are you doing here, lad? Where's your mum-"

"I'm running away from home," Henry declared, then bit his lip. "Which way am I supposed to go to leave town?"

Oh dear gods above, Regina was going to burn the shop down around his ears. Rumpelstiltskin bent down until he was looking Henry in the eye, trying to sense what had gone wrong. Everything was fine last Sunday, Henry was excited to go back to school again, he'd gotten that new backpack and everything. And now he wanted to leave town like a junior Tom Sawyer?

"What's wrong with your home, Henry? Did your mother..." Rumpelstiltskin didn't think that Regina would raise a hand to her son, really. She was fiercely protective of Henry, like a mother wolf guarding her cub, but there were other ways to hurt your children than a slap across the face. "Did something happen?"

"Mommy's making me go back to school."

"And...that's unacceptable?"

"It's awful!" Henry blurted out. "I'm in a different class than my friends and they don't remember me! I just got them to remember me on Friday, what if they forget me on Monday? We only play at recess now, and Mommy says I'm too old to be a kindergartener, but I don't understand why when my friends all had birthdays and are a year older but they're in the same classroom and so I should be too-"

"Wait, wait, wait," Rumpelstiltskin gently took hold of Henry's small shoulders, scrubbing the tears rolling down his cheeks witht he back of his hand. "Let me get this straight Henry, let me get this straight. You're in the first grade? And your friends are still in kindergarten?"

"Yes!" he wailed.

Oh...

Of course he was.

Henry Mills was the only person, place, or thing aging in Storybrooke. Why hadn't he realized this would be a problem when Henry started school? Charlie Brewster had been stuck on the same math problem since 1983 and Paige Grace slipped away every year during the fourth grade class's field trip to play with the rabbits in the petting zoo. Henry was the only child growing in Storybrooke. He might be able to play with his kindergarten friends this year, but next year he'd be a second grader while they were still learning the alphabet. Whatever friends he made then would quickly be outgrown the year after that, and after that, and eventually he'd be the only person to actually graduate from Storybrooke High School...assuming the poor boy hadn't gone mad as a certain hatter before then.

Oh _shit_.

Rumpelstiltskin gathered Henry up in his arms and wasn't at all surprised that the boy cried a little on his shoulder. He was getting too big to be carried, really, but wrapping an arm around his legs just under his bum and standing up let Rumpelstiltskin manage it while Henry clung like a limpet.

Ms. French had emerged from the back, looking very confused and for the only time in his life Rumpelstiltskin gave her an order: "I've got this, Ms. French. Would you please call Mayor Mills-"

"Don't call her! I don't want to go home!"

"-in about half an hour, please? I need to talk to Henry."

Ms. French raised one fine-groomed brow. "Twenty minutes. You can sit in my office, go on."

"Thank you," he nodded, slipping by her with Henry still wrapped around him. The boy held on even as Rumpelstiltskin sat down, curled up on his lap so small and fragile his slight weight almost hurt.

"I don't wanna go back!" Henry said again, scrubbing at his eyes with his shirt sleeve. "I wanna go to school with my friends!"

"I know you do, I know," Rumpelstiltskin soothed, smoothing his young charge's hair out of his eyes. "You haven't done anything wrong, Henry, I promise you that. It's okay. It's alright. It's just that you're older than they are now, you've already been through kindergarten. You won't learn anything new sitting through another year in the same classroom."

"Then how come they have to?" he sniffled.

Explaining that this was a cursed town and that until his birth mother arrived and did something nothing would change seemed a bit...too complex. So Rumpelstiltskin sighed, and formulated a lie as close to the truth as a six-year-old could believe.

"Well, you're a year older. And sometimes as you grow older, people change. They may not have remembered everything from kindergarten like you did-"

"Because they're dummies?"

Laughing would probably be rude, but he smiled all the same. "Mm...not quite, but close. So you belong in the first grade now, and next year you'll go to the second grade, and then the third. You're growing up, you see, and changing. Storybrooke just...doesn't change as quickly as you do. Not the town, not the people-"

"Do you stop changing when you grow up?" Henry asked, tilting his head in such a Bae-like way Rumpelstiltskin needed to hug the boy close.

"Sometimes. And sometimes you don't," he answered, closing his eyes when small arms circled around his neck. He could almost remember tiny fists pulling on his hair. Two different babes, two different lives. "I change, but not everyone else does."

"Do your friends forget you?" Henry asked, his voice sounding very small. Afraid.

That was a loaded question that Rumpelstiltskin actually had an answer for: "Yes, they do. Since I came to town, at least. And if they haven't seen me for awhile. You know it took nearly five years for Ruby Lucas to remember my name as well as she does now?"

Henry pulled back with a stunned expression. Five years was nearly longer than Henry had been alive, of course that concept mystified him. "But Ruby knows everyone."

"Yes, and she knows me well enough _now_. Sometimes...sometimes people that don't change have a hard time adjusting to people that do change. Yes. That's right. And because they don't ever change, they think something's wrong with the people that see things differently. I knew a man once named Basil that didn't change, but he started seeing that things were different."

"Do I see things differently? Is that why my friends don't remember me?"

"Something very much like that, that's right."

Henry hummed thoughtfully. "So...they don't remember me 'cause they don't change, but I remember them 'cause I see things differently? Am I magic?"

"I can't say it is." _'Mostly because your adoptive mother would cut my heart out, with a spoon, because it would hurt more according to the movies, though I've no desire to study that phenomenon myself.'_ "Now, is that the only reason you wanted to leave home? Because your mother was sending you to the first grade instead of kindergarten? She didn't...hit you, or something like that?"

Henry's confusion at the idea of his mother hitting him was surprisingly comforting. "No. Why would she hit me?"

"Some...some parents aren't very nice, that's all. Your mother loves you though, I don't think she'd hurt you like that. Don't worry about it," he smiled. "Now, how did you get away from your mum?"

"I slipped out the back door when she sent me to my room," Henry said, then frowned. "I'm gonna get in big trouble, aren't I?"

"Only because she'll be worried," Rumpelstiltskin promised, because _that_ he believed. "Now, I believe we have some time before Ms. French calls your mum. I believe I have a belated birthday present for you upstairs, if you'd like something to cheer you up."

"Bee ladied?"

"It means late."

"Oh. Okay."

Rumpelstiltskin set Henry in Ms. French's office chair before he went upstairs to his flat. This scarf was a little too long for a six-year-old, really, but he could just wrap it around his neck a few more times. The dark blue-gray squares broken up by thin scarlet stripes suited Henry, he thought. Quiet-but-vibrant, modest with a streak of color. He held it behind his back when he descended the stairs and presented it to Henry, and from how his eyes lit up, he'd chosen well.

It took a few minutes to show Henry the best way to wrap it so it wouldn't drag the ground. Rumpelstiltskin saw Ms. French peeking into the back and he smiled over Henry's head at her. It was about fifteen minutes into her promised twenty, and Henry's spirits had been lifted enough that he didn't think he'd be running away again today. He gave a nod to Ms. French's questioning brow and she darted away again to make a phone call in the front of the shop.

Henry looked up at him then and gave a grin, prominently displaying that gap where he'd just lost his first baby tooth.

"I have a scarf like you now!" he crowed.

"Lots of people where scarves Henry, mine aren't special."

"Sure it is! You made 'em yourself, like my mom makes apple turnovers! That makes them special," he said with perfect six-year-old logic, looking as solemn as he could with his little hands folded behind his back. "Like the magic rock that makes soup."

Rumpelstiltskin would never know why bright little children looked up to him, the crippled coward, but he smiled anyway and sat Henry down in one chair while he took the other. This story was a short one, enough to keep Henry entertained until his mother swept in at least. It was one of the lad's favorites, though he'd yet to grasp what the rock really did.

It was oddly flattering all the same, as this was a rather true story on Rumpelstiltskin's part. When he'd escaped the Evil Queen he'd had to make his way back to the Frontlands largely on foot, and then later tracing Baelfire's steps back past the Dark Castle. It wasn't only a long trip, it was a lean one. He'd stumbled over a very pretty stone on the road, a smooth river rock from the looks of it, and kept it with him in the hopes of earning a copper or two from some enamored buyer for it's interesting color and shine.

The town he'd come to was small, but everyone was shut inside their houses in fear of the Evil Queen despite the fact that she had been banished at that time. Not only were they afraid, but they were quite rude. Especially to him when he offered small bits of work for small bites of food. He'd finally begun wondering if he could eat the rock if he boiled it long enough...

* * *

Lacey had barely spit out, "Your son is here," before Regina had hung up. The mayor would probably break her own speed limits just to get here, so there was maybe ten minutes until Henry was back with his mother.

She had hovered near the curtains leading to the back of Old World Books while Gold spoke to Henry. She didn't really suspect Gold of any...inappropriate behavior, but she did want to hear what had Henry so upset. To hear him tell it, he was the only child to enter first grade. Strange. Gold had him straightened out now, though, and he'd slipped off and returned with a little present that cheered Henry up. A scarf. It suited the distinguished little gentleman well, Lacey thought, and then the boy had wheedled a story out of his favorite babysitter.

Gold was a terrible soft touch when it came to children. It was really quite adorable.

Lacey thought she might have heard this story about a "magic" stone that made soup when put into a bubbling pot, but she listened anyway because it was much too quiet in the shop. And a soft-spoken brogue did make things more interesting to hear...

"So once the water began to boil, the beggar took a sip from the pot and nodded. There was a small crowd of people who had crept out to watch him make soup from a stone, and they all heard him say, 'It's almost done. It would taste much better with some carrots though.' And one woman said, 'Why, I believe I have some carrots to spare.' So she cut them into pieces and dumped them into the large pot, and when the beggar tasted the soup again, he smiled. 'Much better! Now I always like a good cabbage soup but these carrots were a lovely addition all the same.' And one man in the crowd said, 'Oh! I have some cabbage, wait a tic!' And he chopped up the cabbages and into the pot they went."

Henry giggled. "And then the beggar said the soup would be really nice with some potatos-"

"Now just a minute, who's telling this story?" Gold grinned, poking Henry's belly. "But aye, they brought out potatos, then onions, then some mushrooms, and some salt and pepper and they had a great big delicious pot of stone soup just boiling away in the pot until the beggar declared it was done. And he had so much soup he couldn't eat it all by himself, so he said everyone should go and get a bowl and spoon, and they all formed a long line and all got a serving of stone soup. The beggar was very careful not to drop the stone into anyone's bowl, though, because the magic of stone was that it could make another pot of soup later. All you need was the nice things to add to the pot, which when you get enough people together is quite easy to do."

"And then they all get to eat, too."

"Aye. And so, after everyone had eaten and the beggar was on his way, he left the stone with the townsfolk so they could make stone soup whenever they pleased. And when he was leaving town, he stumbled over something in the road. It was a nice rock, you see, about the size of your first with all these jaggedy edges and dark as-"

"And it was another magic soup stone!"

Gold clicked his tongue, slumping back in his chair. "Ach, you spoiled the ending! How many times have I told you this story, Mr. Mills?"

"I dunno, but I like it! Can I hear another story, please?"

Lacey felt the fool smile she'd unwittingly had across her face slide off when the bell jangled violently over the door. Storytime was over.

Storms were supposed to sound like thunder and roaring wind, but in Lacey's mind, a storm would always sound like clacking heels and the sharp bite of Regina bloody Mills snapping, "French!"

Lacey rolled her eyes even as Henry slid out his seat and shyly slunk forwards, looking appropriately shamefaced.

Most of Regina's outrage melted at the sight of her son safe and sound, and she dropped to her knees to scoop him up in a hug. "Oh Henry, you had me so scared! Don't you ever run away from home again, I was worried sick!"

"Yes, you need to leave a note," Lacey said, which earned her a glare from Regina. (Really, it was common sense though...)

"'m sorry Mommy," Henry mumbled against his mother's shoulder. "I didn't want to scare you..."

"Well, the important thing is that you're okay," she sighed, getting to her feet and taking Henry's little hand in hers. "Let's go home, alright? We'll talk about it later...thank you, Ms. French."

"Oh don't thank me, Gold's the one who talked the little runaway into giving up his life on the road."

Regina paused, and Lacey thought she saw something flicker in the mayor's dark eyes. "Gold? Gold spoke to my son?"

"Uh-huh," Henry nodded agreeably. Gold had crept out of the back then, standing there in the door to the back like a deer in the headlights. "Mr. Gold said what you said, Mommy. That I'm older so I gotta go to the first grade while my old friends are still in kindergarten."

Oh yes, that was _definitely_ a flicker in Regina's eyes, wasn't it?

She smiled, though, a red-lipped thing that made Lacey's skin crawl unpleasantly. Not with fear or discomfort...what had Mum said? _Like someone was walking on her grave._ Yes, that was it, an eerie, unpleasant feeling beyond her ability to describe. And it was directed at Gold.

"Well wasn't that kind of him. Thank you, Gold," she all but sneered, then tugged Henry out the door. "Come along, sweetheart, dinner's going to get cold."

"Bye Mr. Gold! Bye Ms. French!" Henry chirped, the end of his too-long scarf nearly getting caught in the door that slammed behind mother and son.

Lacey looked to Gold with the intent of saying something sarcastic about maternal affection, or perhaps about dinner not being the only thing cold, but her words failed when she saw the color drain out of Gold's face.

"Gold?"

"Wh-what?"

"Gold, are you alright? You look ill..."

"I-I'm...I need to lie down, Ms. French, I-I'm not feeling so well."

Lacey frowned, glacning at the clock. "Well, it's close enough to closing time. You're free to go." _'As it were...'_

Gold nodded dumbly, then left. He had stumbled up the stairs, presumably to lie on his sofa, or bed, leaving Lacey standing in the empty shop. It was...odd. She was missing something, wasn't she?

But what?

* * *

Ironically enough, Henry had woken up with a cold on Sunday morning and Regina had opted to keep him home for that reason, plus the existing one: _Gold had told Henry something about her curse._

It wasn't much at all, really. Her son was too young and Gold must have been too vague in his implications, because all Henry took away from the situation was that he was more advanced than his kindergarten friends, ( _why hadn't she realized this would be an issue for Henry in school_?!) so he had to go into first grade. And there was something about how some people changed when they grew older, and a selfish part of Regina hoped her son would keep believing that as he grew up. It would be so much easier if Henry believed some people changed and others did not, but that was an awfully large can of worms to be opening when there was a much easier target in sight.

Gold had told her son something about the curse, as vague as it was.

And Henry was only six. What would happen when Henry was older, when he was ten? Twelve? A grown man? He was growing so quickly, six years had passed in the blink of an eye. Regina didn't want her enjoyment of Henry's childhood spoiled by the threat of one man turning her little prince against her in the future.

There was really on one way to ensure everything was secure.

And her agreement with Gold had been made before Henry, so by now the terms were outdated. He'd learned nothing from Belle, clearly. Vulnerable to new loopholes stretched in the elastic promise to leave him alone as long as he didn't cause trouble...

_**This would really just be...a preventative measure...** _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter XXX: Gold's greatest fear comes true...


	30. XXX: To Be Continued...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When we last left off, Henry feels out of place in school because he's a year older in ageless Storybrooke, and Gold's attempt to comfort the boy ends in Regina's displeasure...

It wasn't just the cowardice always whispering at the back of his mind that gave Rumpelstiltskin the idea that his life was over.

It was how Regina had looked at him like he had personally offended her.

And those that offended the Evil Queen seldom lived long...or free...

It was a sleepless Saturday and most of Sunday morning. He hadn't been able to sleep for fear of Regina burning the place down around his ears. It could really happen at last, he'd heard the tales of her razing villages in that fashion. It sounded like a horrifying way to go. When nothing happened, and his nerves still completely twisted into knots, Rumpelstiltskin decided to do something he hadn't done since his short-live military career-

Get rip-roaring drunk.

Well, not rip-roaring, exactly.

But a solid two sheets were in the wind an hour or two after he'd stumbled into The Rabbit Hole. The waitress looked gobsmacked that he'd ordered a whiskey rather than a glass of water, and then another. And another. Three had made him start to relax, four had made things go pleasantly fuzzy. The kind of drunk that was comforting, and that was where he should have stopped. If he were to die, at least he'd be numb to it then, without the aches that were Belle and Baelfire stinging his mind.

But his fifth had been purchased by Ruby Lucas herself, (much to the sneering of Keith Nottingham,) who had bought him a whiskey when she arrived to go with her first drink. She may not have noticed time was passing, but apparently _Mr. Gold drinking_ was something for the whole bar to remember. Then Ruby also volunteered to drive him home in her red Camaro when that fifth whiskey had made things go from pleasantly fuzzy to blurry and distorted.

He thought he recalled Ruby saying something about how she was surprised he could handle five glasses of scotch, being as small and "such a teetotaler" as he was. He may have accidentally grabbed a handful of her bottom when he tried looping an arm around her waist to catch his balance, but supposed he was fortunate in that Ruby knew the difference between copping a feel and an uncoordinated idiot. The wolf-girl was pretty and all but she was too tall and too vivacious for him, too...Milah. But nicer. And red. He wasn't given to groping but he'd rather grope Ms. French than Ruby-Red anyway...

Oh shit, he was really drunk, wasn't he?

Ruby's car probably rode nicely, but Rumpelstiltskin's head was swimming and his stomach flipped less than a block from the shop and he begged her to pull over. He needed to walk or he'd vomit all over her nice car. She obeyed his wishes and told him to get a free cup of coffee from Granny's Diner tomorrow, that he remembered. Then he started limping home on this unseasonably warm evening. He'd almost made it to the shop when suddenly Belle was in front of him in a pretty little dress that wasn't at all patchy and-No, not Belle, Ms. French. Yes. She was there in her tall heels and heavy makeup, yup.

But then there was two of them swirling around, so maybe both?

"Hey, hey," she said, coming forwards. "What are you doing out here so late?"

The world went a bit sideways until Bel-Ms. Fr-Until _she_ tucked herself under his arm. It felt like an invitation to wound his arm around her, his face pressing into her pretty curls. He wasn't sure what she smelled like, but it was pretty. Of course it was, she was pretty in everyway. Even smell. "H'lo Miss Frensh, er French?"

"Hello Gold," she sighed, helping him make it the ten or so paces to the door of the shop. "Isn't it my thing to be completely sloshed?"

"'M no' completely sloshed..." he instinctively protested. "Jus'...just a wee bit, maybe..." Rumpelstiltskin supposed his alcohol tolerance was earned from his father's blood, because when before he'd been sent off to the front as a foolish young soldier he'd won a drinking contest during their send off. But that was years ago and he hadn't had much practice since then.

"Ach, a'right, a lot bit," he agreed, bobbing his head in agreement before his nose was buried in her curls again. She was so pretty, all small and soft and _perfect_. She was smiling and he wanted to take her inside and hide from queens and curses under the covers with his lovely mistress, just the two of them all wrapped up and safe.

His mouth was too close to hers, and suddenly they were touching. Had she kissed him? Well if she had, he wasn't going to say no. It had been...well something like three decades since he'd been kissed. By Belle-French at that, too. He tried to remember all the best things to do, tilting his head so he didn't stab her cheek with his ugly nose, cupping her face in his free hand and stroking his slippery lips over hers. The taste of whiskey was almost overpowering in his own mouth, but he thought he could taste a sweet something...and he nibbled on her plush lower lip to verify it was true. Yup-

She was easing him back, flushed and pink in her face, then. Something clicked into place, a gentle fizz of warmth, and Rumpelstiltskin felt completely content. More so than the fourth whiskey made him.

"You...you are very drunk, Mr. Gold," Ms. French-Belle said, smiling in a funny way. He couldn't stop starting at her mouth. "Wh-why don't you, um, you should get some rest. Good night."

Maybe she was overwhelmed by their first, no, second kiss too. She didn't look upset to his tipsy eyes, but he wouldn't kiss her again if she didn't want to. He kissed her forehead, though, breathing in her sweet scent again. Lavender. It was definitely lavender. And _definitely_ a good night now that he had found his lady. Had he just said as much? He couldn't remember-

Suddenly his lady pushed him back and ran. A small sober part of him was confused and hurt, the rest marvelled at how fast she vanished in those tall heels. Rumpelstiltskin had been left leaning against the door, utterly lost, and he wasn't sure how long he stood there before he fumbled for his keys. He only started moving when it became apparent she was not coming back...

He never saw or heard the police cruiser sliding up behind him on the street.

* * *

If Regina had wanted to lock up the little mousy caretaker before, she needed to now.

He'd kissed Ms. French, who hadn't looked so much upset as she had panicked. Like she was overloading. If it turns out Mr. Gold, whatever his real name was, was the Dark One's true love-Well there as so much wrong with that it hardly seemed possibly, but if that were the case, what if Belle woke up? Regina didn't quite have a contingency plan if Belle woke up and decided to go against her plans. That would be an unmitigated disaster.

So Regina resolved to wait, observing via Graham's heart until the next night. Midnight. Ms. French hadn't been seen all day and that was just adding to Regina's worries as she sent her Huntsman in to capture her prey.

They made it look like an accident, in the end. Gold had hit his head on the edge of a coffee table in the struggle, (chloroform, it turns out, takes a few minutes to sink in,) so she spun a tale for Graham to report about strangulation. A little bit of money falling into the hands of the gambling-addict coroner ensured no questions would be asked about the missing body, and that all the paperwork was appropriately filed. The body was reported to be cremated even though it was only a few handfuls of loose dirt in the little box rumored to hold Mr. Gold's remains. Sidney Glass grasped the story with both hands, just as happy as a clam to have a robbery-turned-homicide for the local paper.

In the end...it was almost too easy. Regina resolved that this would be the last "crime" she committed, because there were no threats left. She'd really won, and she had a family in her young son to raise, and control over the whole town. She'd finally, finally won.

Her only regret was that Henry did not take the news as well as Sidney did. She'd expected that, of course. She knew Henry and Gold were close, she'd perhaps even contributed to their relationship by regularly leaving Henry in Gold's care while she had her grownup playdate with Graham. But it still hurt to see how upset her son was, how he was mourning. Regina had taken him to the funeral in an attempt to grant him some closure, holding his hand and not saying a word about the scarf Henry was wearing. (Nor for years in the future, when, weather-permitting, Henry always wore that red-striped scarf.)

Ms. French on the other hand...

It was baffling, really. Regina thought Ms. French would be more upset that the door had been knocked open and some of her things missing, (stashed in Regina's vault, because those were some valuable pieces in more ways than one,) but instead she'd closed the shop for almost a week. And when she came back? She seemed colder, sterner. Less likely to taunt and tease. It was how she'd behaved in the first days of the curse, Regina realized. Gold must have been prying the threads of her curse away from Belle's mind for longer than she'd thought. That was the only sensible possibility.

(Not the only possiblity, but just the sensible one, the one Regina could understand.)

Mr. Gold himself was locked up under the hospital now. Regina couldn't quite bring herself to kill him, because he might prove useful yet if Belle should wake up or if something arose that needed his clever mind. She'd given Ratched explicit instructions not to tamper with her newest charge like she had Basil, and that suited the sadistic nurse fine because she still had that blonde peasant girl Regina had nearly forgotten about to torment. What was her name? It sounded like a lotion or something...bah, it didn't matter. They were all firmly contained under the hospital, deep under Storybrooke where no one would find them. Her kingdom above ground was finally perfect, and that was worth the trouble of the past twenty-four years entirely...

* * *

It was cold and dark, and he hadn't lain on such an uncomfortable bed since he'd been the Evil Queen's prisoner...

_Oh hell._

Rumpelstiltskin remembered everything with frightening speed and clarity: He'd woken on Monday with a hangover but opened the shop anyway. The night before he'd kissed Ms. French and she'd run off, and she hadn't come in all day. How mortifying. He'd been so mixed up that he'd dropped a box of new books that scattered into one of the many bins and boxes Ms. French had stuffed into her office and might have sold Mary-Margaret a valuable first-edition of something or other, he couldn't recall what now, for twenty bucks.

Of course...that was really the least of his worries right now, wasn't it?

Graham, with dead eyes and a blank face, had kidnapped him, shoving a strong-smelling rag over his face after a short scuffle that had him blacked out until now. He was still dressed in his t-shirt and plaid pajama pants, but this was not his home. It was a small room, maybe eight feet square, with one thin mattress on a cot and no windows. There was a weak flourescent light in the ceiling that kept it from being pitch black. Barely.

He didn't need to think too hard to realize he was a prisoner of the Evil Queen again. He only wondered if it was his kissing Ms. French or his pep talk to Henry that got him here. Probably both...

It could have been one hour or six, it was hard to tell. But eventually a small grate on the door slid open, and Regina peered inside.

"So," she began almost congenially. "Here we are again. I'm not sure how you escaped the first dungeon I put you in, but I assure you it won't happen again."

"Why are you doing this now? I haven't done anything-"

"You told Henry about the curse! I will not have you turn my son against me-"

"He isn't stupid!" Rumpelstiltskin snapped. "He knows something is wrong with this town, he's too young to understand what but he won't be a child forever!"

He could almost see Regina scowling through the door. "He's my son, and I know what's best for him! I'll take care of him how I see fit, and you forget your place! I should have locked you away years ago. You seem to think you're something more than the pathetic cripple who limped away from the Dark One. I bet the only reason you're even alive is because you weren't worth the trouble of executing, and your lucky that you might be of use to me yet. You are pathetic, but you're smart. I can find a use for you yet."

Rumpelstiltskin studied Regina's cold eyes through the grate. For a moment, he pitied her. Her eyes were exactly like Cora's: Cold, greedy, selfish. She may love Henry, but not more than she loved herself.

She seemed to be waiting for him to say something, but there really was nothing more he could say. Nothing left at all.

So she left, and he was left alone with the sinking feeling that he'd be in this cell for a very long time...

* * *

In Storybrooke, time marched on at an inexplicably slow and fast pace. Mary-Margaret was one month from sending her fourth graders into the fifth grade and welcoming former third graders into her classroom. One of them this year would be Henry Daniel Mills, the mayor's adoptive son. Mary-Margaret predicted he'd have a rough time fitting in.

For years, poor Henry had insisted he was the only one getting older. Regina had him therapy for some time now, Archie was trying to ease the boy's worries that likely had sprung up from the fact that he was adopted. Some people insisted he'd gotten a little scrambled by Mr. Gold's violent death years before, but Henry had been so little then they were surprised he remembered it at all. Maybe that was what had him mixed up sometimes. Most of the time Henry seemed perfectly normal, just quiet, reluctant to play with the other kids. He had good reason to be reluctant because by know every kid thought he was crazy in the whole of Storybrooke Elementary.

Mary-Margaret just thought he was lonesome, so she tried to be nice to her when she could. She understood loneliness. Very well.

Which was what gave her the idea of giving him this picture book.

She couldn't remember where she'd got it. She cleaned out her closet regularly, so it surely hadn't just appeared, right? So either it appeared by magic, or maybe she should have gotten rid of those heels she never wore sooner. That last one was more likely.

It was a pretty book, handsomely bound with leather with _ONCE UPON A TIME_ on the cover. The ink was crisp and dark, the water color illustrations beautifully depicted. It was a bit off the wall in some of the variations, but maybe it was an older storybook.

Beauty and the Beast were described as one woman, who appeared throughout the book as a sinister deal-maker. Rumpelstiltskin had a son, did not spin gold, and was the Dark One Belle's ill-fated servant. The Seven Dwarves had started out as a team of eight, Grumpy earning his name through a broken heart and the eighth dwarf getting killed in a jailbreak. Cinderella's fairy godmother got nuked by the Dark One, who named her price for her assistance as Cinderella's firstborn.

It was all very strange from what Mary-Margaret had skimmed over, but fairytales brought hope. They made the world seem less bleak, to her mind.

So she brought it to Henry, who was sitting by himself outside at lunch scowling at his family tree assignment that the third graders were doing shortly before summer vacation.

She would regret that in some ways because halfway through the summer, Henry started going around town trying to convince people they were characters in the book. Mary-Margaret, finding a spark of nerve, kept her mouth firmly shut when Mayor Mills tried to find who gave her son the book that set him back so much in his therapy. (Henry was certain Dr. Hopper was Jiminy Cricket, and Mary-Margaret felt terrible for thinking that was funny since both had umbrellas and good advice.) Henry had pressed his case hard and he made just enough sense for some people to find it amusing, but there was still enough nonsense that when he entered the fourth grade in September ruder children started leaving preschool-level books on Henry's desk, "Since he believed in baby things like fairies."

Mary-Margaret had never enjoyed giving out detentions until that day, she must say.

As sad as Henry's case was, Mary-Margaret was definitely concerned when he didn't come to school one day in October. He was just gone, and when she called to ask Mayor Mills if he'd taken sick, news wouldn't have spread faster if a bomb had dropped on Storybrooke: Henry Daniel Mills had run away.

Like him or not, that was news to everyone because nothing every happened like this in Storybrooke. It was big news made even bigger by reports the next morning of a yellow bug crashing against the "Now Leaving Storybrooke" sign near the town limit. A _stranger's_ car. Graham had arrested the drunk driver, who was no less than Henry's own birth mother who he'd left to find.

She'd checked into town at Granny's Bed and Breakfast, which made Mary-Margaret suspect she was made of stern stuff or was simply unaware of how scary Mayor Mills could be, or maybe a combination of the two. Between Ruby and Mrs. Lucas and the patrons of their diner, the name of this new woman in town had spread alarmingly fast:

_**Emma Swan.** _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay! This really is to be continued! (For most of Lacey's POV, during this time, go to "Memories of Gold".) I need to do some research on S1, (i.e., _watch it_ ,) and then figure out how I want to contort canon as desired. Consider it my New Years Resolution: Deliver on DO!Belle/Ms. French in S1 cursed!Storybrooke. Emma with personality! Henry with screen time! No Captain Fratboy! (As of yet.) I can't wait to write it!
> 
> HAVE A HAPPY NEW YEAR!


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